


our side

by Zingiber



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale whump, Domestic Fluff, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Isolation, M/M, Romance, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Trauma, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2020-10-30 23:24:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 78,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20781911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zingiber/pseuds/Zingiber
Summary: When war erupts between humanity and the forces of Heaven and Hell, Aziraphale and Crowey seek refuge in the South Downs - and in each other.





	1. miracle scones

**Author's Note:**

> I'm Zingiberis and/or Ineffablegame on Tumblr.
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: This story contains themes of fear and isolation. If the recent COVID-19 pandemic is a source of stress for you, you may want to give this story a pass (or wait until you're in a better headspace for it).

Every morning before sunup, Aziraphale checks the wards.

It’s soothing, this – laying his hands on the familiar places, pouring what little power he has allowed himself into the ethereal markings stitched into the fabric of their realities. The first is at the front door of the cottage, in the center of a whorl on the doorframe. _Keep us safe, _he thinks, imbuing the wood with power. 

The second ward is at the gate to Crowley’s garden, a mad-hatter ordered riot of green. Aziraphale presses his fingers to the fencepost, brushing his thumb along the frilled edge of a squash leaf. _Keep us safe._ He moves on, marking the third ward – the main gate of the fence surrounding their cottage, _keep us safe_ – and undoes the latch. The gate swings open and he stares at the shadow-dappled dirt path as it stretches away, veering into the trees. The rich scents of damp dirt and budding woodland fill his senses as he brushes his fingers to the postbox. They haven’t received a single piece of correspondence in the year they’ve been here, not even the junk mail that once plagued Crowley in London, but the postbox is far more than mere ornamentation: it is a link in the chain-mail of their armor. Without it – without any of the wards – their safety is at risk. 

_Keep us safe,_ Aziraphale thinks, and closes the gate behind him. His feet are silent as he moves down the path. The sun has not yet risen, but through gaps in the trees, he sees pre-dawn light dyeing the horizon with rose and cornflower hues. He stops at the edge of the wood and reaches down to touch the root of a gnarled ash tree. _Keep us safe._

Aziraphale moves up the path, stopping here to touch a craggy knot on a tree, there the stones overlooking a creek. _Keep us safe. Keep us safe._ They are distinctive features, easy to find in the dark and just as easy for unwary passers-by to dismiss. But there should be no passers-by. Not here. 

The path straightens and slopes upward. As Aziraphale trudges uphill, a prickle of pain creeps over his left shoulder, skitters down his arm to tremble through his fingers. He smooths his hand over his thigh, turns it over to study the sliver of gold running over his palm. He makes a fist. 

At the top of the hill, he touches the final ward – an old bench. Rust stains the cast-iron base and moss fuzzes the boards, but the bench is also the cornerstone of a ward, so it will never truly succumb to the elements. Aziraphale grips the topmost board of the back, suffusing the last of his allotted power into the rotted wood. He sighs, feeling a fraction of the pain in his shoulder ebb away. In his mind’s eye, eight concentric circles gleam with ethereal power. 

Satisfied, Aziraphale rounds the bench and takes a seat. This is a perk of his daily routine: watching the sun come up, knowing they will be safe for another day. The hilltop provides a perfect view of sunrise over the South Downs. Hills roll gently in the distance, angling into fields bordered by neat lines of trees. Sunlight spills over the horizon, limning the mist in shining gold. Aziraphale rests his chin in his hands and exhales. _We are safe._

The pain prickles again in his shoulder. It burrows deep, a promise to rake at tattered nerve endings as the sun treks across the sky. He ignores it. For now, he only wants to watch the sun rise – and to imagine. To imagine standing, striding to the edge of the hill, where the ground gives way in a steep drop. To imagine spreading his wings and flying, strong and unfettered, across the South Downs. 

The pain sharpens. Wincing, Aziraphale rubs his left shoulder. The sun begins its slow climb into the sky.

-

When he returns to the cottage, Aziraphale finds Crowley at work in his garden.

“We’re sorted for tomatoes,” Crowley remarks, pulling a fat, ripe tomato off the vine. He tosses it into the basket with nary a care, but he doesn’t expect the fruit to bruise, so it won’t. He’s dressed in his usual sleek, posh clothes, impervious to the practicalities of gardening. Aziraphale bought him gloves and a smock ages ago. They are still in the cupboard, as pristine as they were the day he purchased them. “Loads and loads of tomatoes. Tomato _city, _this is.”

“I suppose I can look for canning recipes,” Aziraphale says. “We might as well set up an extra store. In… in case.”

Crowley is silent for a beat. Then, turning to a shady corner of the garden, he says, “The aubergines are being stubborn, but I had a word with them and they’re finally sorting themselves out. Come look.”

Aziraphale opens the gate and steps inside, skirting the edge of the mounded soil. The air grows warm and dense as he moves in further, as if they are inside an invisible greenhouse. They quite possibly are. “Crowley, I thought we agreed…”

“Don’t worry,” Crowley says, waving a hand. “It was only a whisper. Not even the carrots heard it.”

“Prone to eavesdropping, are they? Carrots?”

“Notoriously.” Crowley beckons Aziraphale over to a short, stalky plant, nearly bent double with the weight of its bounty. Stooping, he pulls an aubergine from the stem and offers it to Aziraphale. “See?”

“I do,” Aziraphale says. He takes the proffered fruit. “My dear, did you read any of the gardening manuals I gave you? Because aubergines are meant to be grown in sunlight. This one is far too short…”

“Bah.” Crowley shrugs, dismissive. “Doesn’t matter. They’re growing, aren’t they?”

“And this…” Aziraphale looks around, noting the absence of an organizational frame, the haphazard angles of the vine stakes. “This is all a touch slapdash. Perhaps you could organize it? Make it more… normal?”

He only means to put a gentle emphasis on the last word, but it rings between them as clearly as a struck bell. Crowley’s smile fades. Standing up, he nods. “S’pose so.”

“I’m sorry.” Aziraphale looks at the dirt, a little abashed. “I didn’t mean…”

“No, you’re right,” says Crowley. He waves his hands, unconsciously miracling the dirt from his fingers, and tenses. “Ah.”

“Little things like that are probably fine,” Aziraphale says. “I should think.”

“No,” Crowley says, firmly. “We agreed. I’ll… I’ll look at those manuals properly. Sort this out.” A wave around the garden. Aziraphale can see the gesture is meant to be cool, detached, but somehow, he feels like he’s slapped Crowley across the face. He should be delighted Crowley has worked so hard on the garden. When Aziraphale first suggested it, he was irate. 

_We won’t be here long enough to grow anything, _he’d said. _What’s the point?_

He swallows his guilt and plasters on a smile. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m absolutely dying for a cuppa. Would you like some?”

“Yeah,” Crowley says, already angling a distracted look around the garden. “Thanks.”

“Not at all.” Aziraphale crosses to the other side of the garden. He wants to be out of this place, away from the unnaturally balmy air and the cloying sweat of his own blunder. “I’ll just…” He reaches for the gate, unthinking, and draws a sharp breath as pain lances down his shoulder. His feet falter.

A moment of silence falls. It can only be a handful of seconds in reality, but to Aziraphale, that handful stretches like a spring, building tension, bound to recoil. 

“Angel?” Crowley says at last. His voice is deliberately nonchalant. “Everything alright?”

“Of course,” Aziraphale says. He clenches his left hand into a fist and opens it, fingers starfishing, wringing out the pain. “Perfectly fine.”

He goes inside. Crowley doesn’t follow him.

-

The prickle makes good on its promise. As the day lengthens, it sharpens from kitten claws to raking blades. Seated in his armchair with a book propped open in his lap and a fire crackling in the grate, Aziraphale stares at the page and struggles to comprehend the swimming text. The wound is a year old, but at times like these, it feels freshly-carved. He turns a page with his right hand, more for the action than to continue reading. 

Aziraphale once had an entire bookshop to peruse. In the bookshop, he’d been a wayfarer, free to travel through a thousand different worlds on a whim. He could be in a dingy London alleyway, the bowels of a Parisian opera house, the windswept plains of La Mancha. He could be an explorer in a far-off galaxy or twenty-thousand leagues under the sea. He could be in the minds of human authors and characters, a fanciful impersonator.

Now, Aziraphale is in the cottage in the South Downs. He has a crate full of books. He treats them all with care, using his power sparingly when he fears the damp, the rot. Crowley has mentioned building him a bookshelf, but that whim was long ago buried under the realities of self-sufficient country life. Aziraphale doesn’t mind. After London, he has a new threshold for the concept of _loss._ Books are just—just things. Gross matter, material objects. They belong to a world that no longer wants him.

“…raphale? Aziraphale, are you listening?”

Aziraphale looks up. Crowley is leaning on the wall adjoining the stairwell, arms folded. He’s dispensed with the glasses, as is his wont when they are indoors. The firelight glints copper in his hair and molten gold in his quizzical gaze. 

“Sorry, dear boy,” Aziraphale says. “Lost in thought.”

“I’ll say,” Crowley sighs. “I’m off to bed.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale finds a smile for him. “Well. Goodnight, then.”

Crowley is motionless, and for all he is leaning like a man-shaped being at perfect ease with the world, every jagged line of his body is strung taut. Silence edges into the room, a being all its own, with such a stifling presence it cannot be overlooked. 

“I was wondering,” Crowley begins, only to fall quiet at a _pop_ from the grate. Aziraphale turns to watch the fire as a log buckles in on itself. Embers fountain up from the flames.

He turns back to Crowley, the spell broken. “What were you—”

“Nothing,” Crowley says, already turning toward the stairs. “Good night.”

Aziraphale stares after him, unable to respond. Because, in the briefest instant before Crowley turned away, he caught a glimpse of his face. The harrowed, haunted look of old terror dredged up.

As the night deepens, Aziraphale tries to keep reading, but the twinned distractions of pain and that glimpse of Crowley’s face make it impossible. A little past midnight, he gives up and closes the book. He makes another cup of tea, taking comfort in the simple tradition, the first herbal waft when he pours the water. Tea in hand, he goes back to his armchair and sits in the quiet, watching the fire burn down to cinders. 

He was excited, a year ago, when he realized the cottage had a fireplace. It seemed such a _human_ thing to do: gathering firewood, opening the damper, building up the tinder. Lighting a match, those first few fumbling attempts where he’d scraped or burnt his fingertips. Crowley demanded why he didn’t simply snap his fingers and summon the flames, but Aziraphale was determined to do it the proper way. Crowley, impatient as he was, never waited around long enough for him to get a fire going. A pity – Aziraphale is becoming quite good at it. 

Crowley’s face flickers through his mind, all haunted eyes and waxen skin. _Maybe it isn’t impatience, _Aziraphale thinks. The pain in his shoulder drums alongside his heartbeat. 

He doesn’t sleep. He can’t fathom how Crowley can, not with the world beyond the wards the way it is. Crowley tried to coax him into sleeping, in the first few months here. _It’s nice, _he’d said. Then, with the barest note of trepidation: _It will help you recover. Help your mind reset._

_I’m not an invalid, _Aziraphale snapped, though he very much was. Crowley said no more, but the hurt in his eyes had cut deeply. 

Staring into the dying fire, Aziraphale thinks of the wards. The door. Crowley’s garden. The front gate. The postbox. The root. The craggy knot. The stones. The bench. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. Behind his eyelids, each circle shines, sated and robust on his power. Tomorrow – no, today, in a few hours – he will go out and reinforce them again. 

_Safe,_ he thinks, as the last tongues of flame gutter out and shadows gather close. At his elbow, the cup of tea grows cold. _Safe._

-

One morning, a few months later, Aziraphale returns from reinforcing the wards to find the flag on the postbox standing upright. He stares at it – a decrepit, weather-beaten banner, painted a faded red that might have resembled something cheery, once upon a time – and an icy trickle of fear slides down his spine. He thinks his brain must be miswired, because there is no logical reason why the sight of a flag standing at a jaunty angle should send his thoughts careening off-track and tie his guts into knots. 

_Who was here? _ The question flutters out of the mayhem of his thoughts. _Who did this how did a human cross the wards is there a gap where is the gap where is Crowley oh God a human found a gap in the wards and now Crowley is gone forever and—_

“Stop this,” he says aloud to himself. Hand shaking, he reaches out and opens the postbox. 

A single letter waits inside, emanating a faint, ethereal glow. The knots in his stomach tighten as he picks up the letter and slips it into his pocket. He shuts the postbox and lowers the flag. 

“Angel?” Crowley calls, startling him as he closes the gate. Aziraphale’s knuckles whiten around the handle. Fixing the latch in place, he turns to Crowley with a forced smile. The demon is standing with a basket of freshly-picked vegetables in his arms, a furrow etched on his brow. “Something wrong?”

“Not—not at all,” Aziraphale says. “Everything is perfectly fine. Tea?”

“Nah,” Crowley says. The furrow on his brow has yet to vanish. “You’re sure you’re alright?”

“Absolutely.” Aziraphale moves toward the cottage door, the letter burning a hole in his pocket. “Just—just tip-top. Excuse me, I have to…” And he’s pushing the door open and slipping inside, leaving his excuse to trail into obscurity. 

In the kitchen, Aziraphale fumbles the letter from his pocket and drops it on the table. Sunlight streams through the parted curtains at the kitchen window and pools on the woodgrain. In that warm glow, the holy light of the letter strikes a cold, sterile contrast. There can be no doubt as to who sent the letter, even if the envelope is unmarked. Aziraphale draws a slow breath, marshalling his strength. 

Pain dances through his shoulder and down his spine. His blood is roaring in his ears. He lifts the envelope, slides a finger under the flap, and tears it open. As his fingers skim the missive inside, a memory leaps from the paper and erupts, white-hot and screaming, into his mind. 

He is standing in the midst of a carnage, a battle on a riverbank. A power station looms behind him. The single tower is scarred and pock-marked, as if chunks have been gouged out by the claws of an immense beast. In the distance, the razed ruin of London’s skyline is obscured by drifts of smoke billowing out of blasted buildings. The air is filmed with grit, a foul taste he can’t spit out. He looks down. In his hand is clasped a blade, the steel blazing with holy fire. 

Screams slice the air and Aziraphale looks up, hand tightening on the hilt of his sword. Far above, wings outstretched, Sandalphon hurtles on an updraft to the top of the tower. If Aziraphale ever suspected the Archangel had gone soft, lost his edge, he does not think so now. This is the menace who sacked Sodom and Gomorrah, and he is terrible and glorious in his element. He swings his blade and shears through the top of the tower like a reaper scything wheat. There are humans up there, Aziraphale realizes. They scream as they plummet to their deaths. 

Aziraphale’s arms rise in gooseflesh. This isn’t right. He isn’t meant to be here. He’s meant to be at the cottage in the South Downs. He’s meant to be checking the wards, reading his books, drinking tea while Crowley bullies the plants in his garden—

He sees it at the last moment: a shadow moving along the lower wall of the power station. Before he can react, the shadow coalesces into a machine of some kind, a canon, perhaps. It swings, takes aim. Fires. 

Sandalphon drops from the sky. He is covered in a net, wings pinioned. He swings his blade frantically, but the net only tangles more tightly around him, impervious to the holy steel. The Archangel crashes onto one of the lower walls with a roar as he wrestles in his bonds. Aziraphale unfurls his wings, and _oh,_ that isn’t right, he can’t—

His vision skips and suddenly he’s soaring high above the scene. Sandalphon is but a speck below, but he narrows his focus and the picture comes into perfect clarity. Humans are pouring out of the tower, stepping over their fallen brethren to get to the captured Archangel. Moonlight gleams dully off the blades in their hands. Aziraphale shudders as an instinctual piece of him shrinks back, repulsed. 

He is so distracted by the blades it takes him a moment to process the evil work they are about to do. The humans waste no time, clustering around Sandalphon’s thrashing form. The Archangel’s roars turn to screams as the blades fall. They are butchering him, carving him into pieces, bloodlust hot in their eyes, and it’s Aziraphale they’re cutting, Aziraphale whose screams fill the air—

He’s screaming when the missive is torn from his fingers. The riverbank scene splinters apart and jolts him back to the kitchen, the cottage. Crowley’s hands are tight on his shoulders. 

“Aziraphale!” he shouts, shaking him hard. “Listen to me! You aren’t there! You aren’t _there!”_

Aziraphale sucks in a breath to scream and feels something break inside him. He bends double, pressing his brow to Crowley’s shoulder. Tears blur his vision and he’s shaking and shaking and _shaking. _Crowley’s hands drift over his back. “You’re here. You’re here and you’re with me and you’re _fine._”

“The—” Aziraphale sucks in a shuddering breath. “The letter—”

“Burned,” Crowley says. “I should have noticed. I’m so sorry, angel.”

“It was Gabriel,” Aziraphale realizes aloud. “His memories. He wanted me to see what… what the humans had done. To Sandalphon.”

Crowley tenses infinitesimally. “Bastard. Fucking _bastard.”_

“He wants me to join the fight,” Aziraphale says, half to himself. Bile creeps up the back of his throat. “I can’t—”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Crowley snaps. “Angel. Aziraphale. Listen. You don’t have to do anything. You and I, we owe them nothing.” His hands are gentle as they thread through Aziraphale’s hair, giving lie to the vicious tone. “Yeah?”

Aziraphale gulps in a breath and raises his head. Crowley watches him, eyes soft, fingers still twined in his hair. It would be the simplest thing in this broken husk of a world to tether himself to that hold, pull Crowley across the scant distance. 

He looks at the floor. “The humans have killed Sandalphon. They’re gaining ground so quickly, Crowley. I don’t know what…” He trails off. He doesn’t know how to finish the thought, doesn’t know how he _wants_ it to end. 

Crowley draws back his hands and steps away. Aziraphale tries not to feel the loss of his touch, but it resonates through the hollowness in his heart. 

“Makes sense,” Crowley says. “The humans have always been the most creative of us.”

-

Later, sitting with a book in his lap and a cup of tea at his elbow, Aziraphale watches the fire burn down in the grate. His mind is full of Sandalphon’s dying screams.

Gabriel’s memories – the raw newness of them – have reopened Aziraphale’s old fears with the brutality of ripping away scar tissue. He is open and raw and bleeding out all the terrors he had thought scabbed over. 

Crowley was right about the humans being creative. When they brought war to Heaven and Hell, they brought with it a cunning ferocity that staggered the angels and confounded the demons. They brought with it ravening blades to wound ethereal and infernal flesh beyond healing. They brought with it nets that cinched angels’ wings and sapped their strength. They brought with it circles to ensnare demons and special lenses to ferret out those less skilled at hiding their vermin markings.

Early on, when the fighting was only just beginning in London, Aziraphale saw a demon destroyed. She was an ermine of some kind, a stoat, and she’d been draped around her body’s shoulders like a scarf. A gang of humans, led by a young man wearing the infernal lenses, had amassed around her in the space of a blink. Before she could raise her hand, snap her fingers, one man tore the stoat from around her neck and _twisted. _The demon was dead before her body struck the ground, but that didn’t stop the humans. They had brought their knives, and they intended to use them. 

Aziraphale had slipped away from the scene before breaking into a sprint. When he arrived back at the bookshop, shaking, fighting the urge to vomit, he bolted the doors and closed the shutters. Crowley came by hours later, panic gaunt in the hollows of his face, and Aziraphale realized he had missed their lunch date. 

And now Sandalphon is dead. An Archangel – one of the greatest warriors in Heaven, the scourge of Sodom and Gomorrah – is dead, butchered by humans. 

The fire pops and Aziraphale startles. His elbow knocks into the teacup and saucer, sending them toppling to the floor. The teacup shatters on impact, but the saucer rolls on its edge toward the hearth, where it topples flat.

“Bother,” Aziraphale mutters, standing. He considers the smashed teacup, decides not to risk it. His sock-clad feet are silent as he crosses to the fireplace. Kneeling, he picks up the saucer. A hairline crack runs through one side, a vein of magma in the firelight.

“Don’t.”

Fear draws the word taut and Aziraphale stiffens, half-expecting danger. When he looks up, it is to find Crowley coming toward him. His eyes are intense but his hands are gentle as he bends forward, plucks the saucer from Aziraphale’s fingers. The hairline crack vanishes.

“Crowley,” he begins in weary admonishment, “we agreed not to.”

“It’s just you and me here,” Crowley says. He passes the saucer from hand to hand, illustrating: the crack reappears, disappears, reappears, disappears. A magic trick, a subtle sleight of hand. 

He extends a hand to Aziraphale. “Come away from there, angel. Please.”

Aziraphale is keenly aware of the heat from the fire baking into his skin, the hunger of the licking flames. The stink of charred buildings swarms his senses and he lurches to his feet. Crowley settles gentle hands on his shoulders, steadies him. 

And then – shockingly – pulls him into an embrace. 

Aziraphale goes with a little gasp, but his arms are already coming up to curl around Crowley’s thin frame. He flattens his palms between the demon’s shoulder blades, memorizing the jagged terrain of bone and whipcord muscle. Crowley’s breath is warm in his ear. 

“It’s just you and me here,” he repeats. 

Aziraphale nods and pulls him impossibly closer. “Yes.”

“Stay with me,” Crowley says. “Please.”

“Yes.”

-

Hours later, lying in the dark, Aziraphale closes his eyes and listens to the lulling rhythm of Crowley’s breathing. He is in Crowley’s room, in Crowley’s _bed._ With Crowley sleeping but a handspan away. 

Crowley would argue that this isn’t _his _bedroom, not exactly. It’s the only proper bedroom in the cottage, but Aziraphale had no intention of sleeping after London, so it seemed natural to yield the space to him. He’d never got into the habit of sleeping, and now that the world is slowly tearing itself apart, he sees no sense in starting. No, Aziraphale has his books and his tea and the wards to watch. He doesn’t need to sleep.

Except… except Crowley had said _stay with me. _And when the world was ending in a much more typical fashion, Aziraphale may have been able to set aside the longings that have plagued him for so long, but not now. For eighty years he has loved Crowley, and now, that love is an ocean battering the scoured shores of his self-restraint. He is helpless to refuse. 

Aziraphale turns, careful not to make too much noise, and watches Crowley. In repose, his face is smoothed of lines, the furrow that has taken to sitting between his eyebrows when he watches Aziraphale banished. He wishes he wasn’t the cause of such stress, but after everything, it seems silly to fret. 

He begins reaching across the duvet, stops. The handspan between them feels suddenly vast. Mere inches and the beginning and ends of the world. 

Aziraphale turns onto his back, hands folded on his chest. He doesn’t sleep, so he doesn’t dream. But he remembers.

-

In the last few months before war broke out, with the world spring-coiled in anticipation of the coming storm, Aziraphale did what he had sworn to never do again after Armageddon: nothing. He tended to the bookshop and carried out little good deeds here and there – not Heaven-decreed, but simply good deeds for the sake of _doing good_ – and generally got on with things as he had always done. The only thing that changed was Crowley, who grew more agitated every time Aziraphale saw him. 

“Let’s go on holiday,” he said, apropos of nothing.

Aziraphale looked up from his crème brûlée. “What?”

“You and me. Go away for a while.” A vague hand wave. “Anywhere you like.”

“I _like_ London.”

Crowley scowled. “You know what I mean, and you know it’s perfectly reasonable.”

“Why?” Aziraphale asked, nettled. “Because it isn’t safe?”

Crowley hissed out a breath, eyes darting around the café, but nobody seemed to pay them any mind. “Yes,” he said, voice low. “That’s exactly why.”

Aziraphale fished a piece of crust out of his crème brûlée, sullen. “Surely it can’t be _that _dangerous. We survived Armageddon. We’ve survived countless wars in the past. This is just another war.”

Crowley muttered an oath and snapped his fingers. The café froze around them, suspended in time. Leaning forward, he said, “We were bystanders in those. Now, we’re the enemy. We’re the _targets.” _His hands balled into fists. “And we both know how good humans are at killing their targets.”

Aziraphale lowered his spoon. He knew Crowley was right – he’d been in the Bastille, the battlefields, the camps. Humans were exquisitely good at isolating anyone different, deeming them _enemy, _and killing them. 

Desperately, he said, “But we haven’t done anything wrong. We’re just—just living our lives, same as anyone. We aren’t fighting them.”

“They don’t care,” said Crowley. “The way they see it, we’re affronts simply by existing.” He was quiet for a moment, fingers tapping restlessly on the tabletop. “Look, I’ve got… I’ve got a cottage in the South Downs. It’s remote, miles away from the nearest village. We can go there. Just for a short while. Stay until all of this blows over.”

Aziraphale sat back with a frown. “I’m not leaving my bookshop.”

“Bring the books with,” said Crowley. “There will be enough space for them at the cottage.” It went unsaid that if there wasn’t already enough space there, he would make it so. 

Aziraphale shook his head. “You don’t think the humans will notice when a shop that’s been around for over a century suddenly vanishes?”

“The humans will _notice_ that the shop owner hasn’t aged in decades,” Crowley retorted. “They’ll notice the improbability of a bookshop that never sells anything in the middle of Soho. They’ll realize it, sooner or later.” He set his jaw, words frank, tone hard. “That you’re not like them.” 

Aziraphale stared down at his half-eaten crème brûlée. He was beginning to feel cornered, suffocated. “I don’t want to discuss this anymore.”

But Crowley was relentless. “We can’t afford not to discuss it. The humans are getting bolder, angel, you have to see that. The way they did that stoat demon—”

“Please. Don’t.”

The demon softened. “Look. You know it’s dangerous. Please, can you… can you consider it? It wouldn’t be permanent. Just until… until the skirmishes stop. Then we can come back.” A faltering attempt at a smile, as if he could somehow make light of the situation. “I’m not asking you to up and run away to Alpha Centauri with me. It’s only the South Downs.”

Aziraphale looked at him, guilt warring with fondness. Crowley, dearest Crowley, always looking out for him. His heart ached with the love of him – a sweet, piercing sort of pain. He nodded. “Alright, my dear. I will think about it.”

-

Crowley wakes the next morning with a soft grunt. He’s lovely like this, Aziraphale thinks – soft and sleepy, hair tousled. He slants a muzzy look at Aziraphale. “Did you sleep?”

“No,” says Aziraphale. “Got a little reading done.”

“Hmm.” Crowley sits up and throws his arms above his head in a luxurious stretch. He slept without a shirt; every shift of muscle and arc of bone seems softened in the pallid light, rendering him gauzy and dreamlike. Aziraphale looks away as heat crawls up the back of his neck. “Stay,” Crowley says without preamble. He climbs out of bed and slinks down the stairs, leaving Aziraphale baffled.

He returns minutes later, two steaming cups of tea and a plate laden with scones in hand. A small smile touches Aziraphale’s mouth as the demon hands him the plate. “Oh, Crowley, you really shouldn't have…”

“’Course I should've,” Crowley says, placing one cup on the nightstand beside Aziraphale. “Let me give you miracle scones every now and then. Otherwise, you'll accuse me of being a bad host.”

“I really don’t think that applies in this situation.” Aziraphale breaks off a piece of scone, scattering buttery crumbs. “We both live here.”

“Well.” Crowley flops back onto the bed, toes brushing Aziraphale's heel so casually it may have been a mistake. “Didn’t want to risk it.”

They sit in companionable silence for a time, Aziraphale working through two scones as Crowley sits with his teacup steaming in his hands, gaze distant. Then he says, “Let’s go for a walk today.”

Aziraphale pauses in his chewing. The last bite of scone sticks unpleasantly in his throat. “Where?”

“Dunno.” A shrug. “Anywhere. There’s the village, but that’s miles away. We could just go down the road…”

Aziraphale sets aside the plate, suddenly feeling like his meal has congealed into a cold rock in his belly. “Is that necessary?”

Crowley is quiet for a heartbeat. Then, shrugging, he says, “Nah. Not really.”

“I’m sorry.” Aziraphale braids his fingers together in his lap. He doesn’t know _why _he’s sorry, only that he is, and there is nothing he can do to make amends. “I only…”

“S’fine,” says Crowley.

“I… I should go,” Aziraphale says. He suddenly needs to be away from this room, away from the oppressive weight of guilt. The sun will rise soon. Pushing back the duvet, he climbs out of bed. “I have to check on the wards.”

“Aziraphale, wait.”

Aziraphale halts on the threshold and turns. Sitting in the pre-dawn light, hair mussed and face creased, Crowley looks suddenly very vulnerable. He’s back to normal in an instant, defenses shored up. “Nothing. Never mind.”

-

That morning, Aziraphale reinforces the wards with the taste of tea and butter on his tongue. 


	2. hinged ribs, unhinged head

Newt and Anathema visit the cottage. Aziraphale is shaken.

“What do you mean, you invited them?” he demands, hands balled into fists. “We can’t have humans coming here!”

“These aren’t any old humans,” Crowley says. Seeing Aziraphale’s stunned look, he hastily amends, “They helped avert Armageddon. And the girl is a witch, for pity’s sake. She can’t be all bad.”

“But…”

“Angel.” Crowley catches Aziraphale’s left hand, brings it to his lips. Aziraphale watches, disbelieving, as the demon brushes a kiss over his knuckles. His fingers uncurl and Crowley rubs his thumb over the sliver of gold on his palm, hiding it. He can’t keep up with this – the ever-shifting parameters of their relationship, veering between _colleagues _and _friends_ and _something else_ with dizzying speed. 

“Trust me,” Crowley says simply. Aziraphale nods.

-

“What a lovely cottage,” Newt says, handing over a bottle of wine. Crowley takes it with murmured thanks, sets it aside.

“I counted eight wards around this place,” says Anathema. Her hand rubs absentminded circles on the mound of her belly. “Is that right?”

Aziraphale blinks. “Ah—yes. Well-spotted.”

“They gave me a shock,” Newt admits. “Got a bit dizzy.”

“Terribly sorry,” says Aziraphale, not meaning it. “I may have, er, got a little overzealous.”

Anathema shrugs. “I understand,” she says, and something in her sideways glance tells Aziraphale she knows he doesn’t feel a hint of remorse – nor does she blame him. “It’s fine work. If Crowley hadn’t invited us, we would have never got here.”

Later, as Crowley shows Anathema around the garden, Aziraphale and Newt sit inside nibbling on chocolate biscuits and drinking tea. Aziraphale is, despite himself, oddly at peace with the boy’s presence – he radiates a pleasant, nonthreatening aura that soothes the angel’s frayed nerves. 

“Congratulations,” Aziraphale offers. “You must be very excited.”

A wide smile stretches across Newt’s face, smoothing away the lingering uneasiness. “Thank you. We really are.”

“Do you, ah, know what it is?”

“A baby, hopefully,” Newt says. “Beyond that, we don’t mind much. As long as it’s healthy and happy.”

Aziraphale feels a genuine smile creep across his face. In his experience, babies are sometimes babies and sometimes Antichrists. But he only says, “I’m certain it will be.”

They make conversation for a time, with Newt filling Aziraphale in on what has been happening in London. The battles grow more brutal by the day. Humans have been fleeing the city en masse, bound for the countryside. Factions of anti-immortal “Freedom Fighters” are forming. They patrol the streets, stopping passers-by they deem suspicious to confirm their humanity. Any angels or demons unfortunate enough to cross their path are captured and made examples of.

“They’re really just gangs,” Newt says. “They act like heroes, but they harass ordinary people, too. Muggings, looting, bribing the police. And the Prime Minister backs them because he knows it’ll make him more popular.”

“That’s awful.”

Newt nods and picks up another chocolate biscuit. Aziraphale had noticed the way his eyes widened when he brought out the platter – naked surprise, swiftly concealed. He’d heard food shortages were beginning, prices skyrocketing, but to see the hunger in Newt’s eyes brings the hypothetical crashing into reality. He suspects - no, he _knows_ \- that the bottle of wine was a reserve from before the war, probably forgotten, gathering dust in some cupboard before it was unearthed in the midst of cleaning. 

“She feels guilty, you know,” Newt says.

“What?”

“Anathema.” Newt angles a glance toward the kitchen window. Beyond the glass, the garden is a riot of glorious blooms. “She blames herself for all this. Thinks that if she hadn’t burned Agnes Nutter’s second book, she would have noticed something. A prophecy to avert the war.”

Cold dread trickles down Aziraphale’s spine. Humans are so keen to lay blame, to assume responsibility for matters far beyond their control. Living but a handful of years, they cannot fathom the smallness of their lives. Agnes Nutter may have predicted the war, but even she, reaching through centuries to move her descendants like pieces on a chessboard, could not have stopped it. 

Aziraphale has been in the world since its infancy. In his mind, a red woman smiles as she hefts the flaming sword, eyes twinned bonfires of bloodlust. 

“Trust me,” he says, “she has nothing to feel guilty about.”

Hours later, as Newt and Anathema prepare to leave, Aziraphale says, “May I…?”

“Oh.” Anathema looks taken aback. “Um. Sure.”

Aziraphale, feeling inexplicably shy, lays a hand on her belly. He feels it in an instant: the delicate scaffolding of a life coming together, strong and sure. He glimpses blue eyes, olive skin. 

_Be safe, _he thinks, and draws his hand away. “Thank you.”

“Not at all,” says Anathema. She gives him a shrewd look. “You be safe, too.”

The two pack up their land rover and trundle off down the dirt road. Aziraphale stands beside Crowley and watches them disappear with a reeling sense of unreality. It’s been over two years since he saw anyone besides Crowley in person. He feels exposed, as if his ribs have hinged outwards like open doors. _Here is my weak spot. _

“Angel?” That familiar furrow is etched between Crowley’s eyebrows. “Everything okay?”

“Yes,” says Aziraphale, though it very much isn’t. The guilt is a mountain upon him, suffocating and immense. He has a sudden urge to go check the wards, but he did that this morning, and besides, what would be the point? Why is he so keen on keeping out the war he started? “I might… sit for a little. Read.”

Crowley watches him for a moment in silence. He put on his shades when Newt and Anathema arrived, lest his eyes alarm them. Aziraphale’s fingers itch to pull them off. 

Crowley turns away. “Right. I’ll be in the garden if you need anything.”

Aziraphale tucks his hands into his trouser pockets. “Of course.”

He flees to his armchair, pulls a book from the crate, and sits staring at it for an hour without absorbing a single word. He hadn’t meant for this to happen. He’d only wanted to help Adam and Eve, keep them safe from the cold and the wild. 

_How did I get it so wrong?_

-

“Go on, then,” Crowley says that evening. “Spit it out.”

Aziraphale stills in his armchair. Without looking up, he asks, “What?”

“You’re angry with me. Don’t bother denying it. You won’t even look at me.”

Aziraphale looks up then, not bothering to hide his anger. It’s a cold, heavy weight within him, congealed from guilt and a mad sense of betrayal that had crept over him after Newt and Anathema’s departure. It makes no _sense, _he knows that, but self-awareness does nothing to lessen the load. “Yes, fine, I am angry with you.”

“Well, then, get on with it,” Crowley says, his voice edging toward an outright snarl. 

Aziraphale snaps shut the book in his lap. “What on _Earth_ made you think you could bring humans here? And without consulting me. Isn’t the entire point of this place to be away from them? To be safe?”

“We agreed those two aren’t like the other humans,” Crowley says.

“No,” Aziraphale retorts, “you made that decision on your own. What if they hadn’t been so understanding? They witnessed Armageddon up close. They have just as much reason as any human to hate Heaven and Hell.”

“You—you can’t possibly think that _boy _would raise a hand against us. He hasn’t got a violent bone in his body.”

_“You don’t know that!”_

Crowley sucks in a breath. Silence falls. Aziraphale sinks his fingers into the upholstery of his armchair, fighting an urge to rend and destroy. He remembers London, the stoat demon, the heat of the flames licking his skin. 

Aziraphale stands. “Why didn’t you ask me about inviting them? We’re on our side, isn’t that what you said? If that’s true, we can only trust each other and no one else!”

Crowley’s mouth moves, soundlessly. “Angel, that… that can’t work. Not forever.”

Aziraphale strides toward the front door, stoops to put on his shoes. “I’m going out to check on the wards. Don’t wait up.”

“Aziraphale—”

“Don’t follow me,” he snaps, and slams the door shut behind him. Crowley’s voice is lost as he stalks into the gathering dark. 

After checking all eight wards and satisfying himself that not a dust mote could pass without his knowledge, Aziraphale seats himself on the bench atop the hill and stares into the night sky. His throat is painfully tight. 

_“It’d be funny if we both got it wrong, eh?” _Crowley had asked, so, so long ago. _“If I did the good thing and you did the bad one.”_

Aziraphale buries his face in his hands. He is an angel – one of the Almighty’s chosen warriors, tasked with protecting all the knowledge in the world. How, then, had he been so short-sighted? How had he missed the ripples his actions would create, the tsunami waves they would become? 

The Bastille, the battlefields, the camps. Every war that has ever scoured the earth. All those lives, all so Adam and Eve and their unborn child could be safe from the cold, the dark. If he could go back and change things, what would he do differently? 

_Nothing, _he thinks, damning himself for a fool. _You always were a weakling._

“Aziraphale.”

He looks up. Crowley stands at the edge of the wood, his jagged edges tear-smeared into obscurity. Blinking, scrubbing a hand over his eyes, Aziraphale pushes down an urge to flee. Or to lash out. “I told you, Crowley…”

“I know.” Crowley rounds the bench and stands on the cusp of the hilltop, head tilted back to watch the stars winking in the deep velvet of the sky. “But here’s the thing, angel. Sometimes you’re a bloody fool.”

The words, uttered with such levity, slap Aziraphale from his stupor. “Oh, for Heaven’s sake—”

“You were right,” Crowley cuts in. “We are on our side. And that means we have to lean on each other when we need it. Yes?”

“Not—not all the time, surely…”

“No,” Crowley agrees, “but now? You have to lean on me. If you say we can only trust each other, you have to trust me enough to do that. Can you try?”

Tears threaten to choke him. “Crowley…” 

The demon turns to face him. Shed of his sunglasses, his eyes gleam like chill gold in the starlight. “I will never blame you for being afraid. Not after… after London. But, Aziraphale, you have to have faith in me. Faith that I’ll do anything to protect you. Protect us.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, mouth twisting, as if such sweet words are bitter as gall on his tongue. “Please.”

Something cracks inside Aziraphale, perilously close to his heart. He bends double, hands clasped over his chest, a sob scraping from his throat. His heart is beating itself to bloody shreds against his ribcage. The guilt will crush him, and Crowley – kind, _good_ Crowley – will never be able to abide him. He might try, because he’s given his word and despite all his hauteur, he stands behind his word. But Aziraphale’s errors will come between them. The ripples of his actions will push Crowley away, push him and push him until he’s so far out of reach, he cannot remember why he wanted to be close to the angel at all. Aziraphale will tell Crowley the truth, and one day – perhaps tomorrow, perhaps years from now – he will look into Crowley’s eyes and see that a vast gulf has grown between them. 

Aziraphale can cut himself off from the entire world, but he cannot bear to cut himself off from Crowley. 

“Angel.” Crowley’s voice is urgent in his ear, his hands tight around his shoulders. He is seated beside him on the bench, so close Aziraphale can feel the warmth bleeding off his body. “Angel! I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s not that,” Aziraphale gasps between sobs. “Oh, Crowley, dearest, it’s not—it’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s…” The crack splinters through him, sunders his heart. “It’s all my fault. All of this. The war. I started it all.”

He expects Crowley to draw back, to put space between them. But Crowley only pulls him closer, propping his chin on Aziraphale’s head, arms twining around him. “Tell me,” he says.

Aziraphale tells him. About the ripples cast out from him giving the flaming sword to Adam and Eve: about bringing War into the world. Each word is a rotten plank cracking underfoot, ready to break and spill him into a fathomless abyss. When he is done, Crowley holds him close under the stars. 

“It’s not your fault,” he murmurs. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is.”

“No. No, it really isn’t.” Crowley draws back, looks him in the eye. “They came to war on their own, angel. You may have given them the sword, but it was their choice. Just like the apple was.”

A bitter laugh. “So I orchestrated the downfall of humanity.”

“No. You gave them a choice.” Crowley presses his lips to Aziraphale’s temple. “She did the same. The humans might tear the world apart, but ultimately, it’s because they’re free to do so.”

Aziraphale throws his arms around Crowley and hugs him close, his body shaking with sobs. He is gutted and guilty and deliriously relieved. 

-

“Yes, lie down just like that. Now close your eyes. You’ve got to kind of… clear your mind.”

Aziraphale musters a weary chuckle. “I have a very crowded mind, I’m afraid.”

“Well, try your best to un-crowd it. It helps you drift off.”

“What do you mean, ‘drift off?’ My mind isn’t a boat.” He has the unsettling mental image of him closing his eyes and falling asleep while the top of his head unhinges, freeing his brain to float into the ether. 

Crowley rolls his eyes, aggrieved, and flops down on the bed beside Aziraphale. The angel slants him a sideways look as he sighs. “You’re overcomplicating it. Look, close your eyes. Now, stop thinking.”

Aziraphale cracks an eye open at that. “Really—”

“Eyes. Closed.”

Aziraphale complies with a muttered, “Bossy.”

“It’s really easy,” Crowley continues, graciously ignoring the jibe. He settles beside Aziraphale, and all at once it becomes very difficult _not _to think – not to think about the body beside him, lanky and lithe and lovely. Aziraphale knits his fingers together on his chest, knuckles white. Crowley tuts. “Why’re you so tense?”

“Because this is _abnormal_.”

“Right.” Crowley curls on his side facing Aziraphale, eyes already gone heavy-lidded. “Here’s an idea. Focus on something easy and pleasant and let your thoughts sort of… anchor on that. But not too tightly. Like a loose fist. Then, as you relax, imagine letting go of it. Letting it slip away.”

“Ridiculous,” Aziraphale mutters, but he tries for lack of any better ideas. Eyes closed, he thinks of croissants and crepes, light, airy crème. He thinks of sitting at a table in a sunlit alcove, Crowley seated across from him, raising a glass of wine to his lips. He thinks of Crowley’s throat bobbing as he swallows, a long, pale line, and _oh, _that’s a pleasant thought, but there is nothing easy about it. Aziraphale steers his mind toward simpler sensations, willing his speeding heart steady. Safety. Warmth. Comfort. The familiar scent of his friend beside him.

Aziraphale has always been quick on the uptake in regards to human hedonism. So, if it were possible to be unsurprised at the moment of sinking into slumber, he would have felt exactly that.

Crowley explained the basic mechanics of sleeping, of course. But he did not think to delve into dreams. And so, a lonely voyager in the realm of dreams, Aziraphale wanders unmoored and heedless into memories. 

Into London. Into Before.

-

After dinner, Crowley offered Aziraphale a lift back to the bookshop, but the angel declined. “I think a walk will do me good. Clear my head.”

Crowley studied him for a moment. Then, “Right. Uh, thanks for. Considering it.” He dithered on the pavement before striding toward the Bentley, throwing the farewell like salt over his shoulder: “Be safe.”

“You, too,” Aziraphale said softly. 

When the Bentley had bulleted around a corner and out of sight, he turned and trudged toward Soho. His thoughts were a careening tumult of shock. Crowley wanted to _leave London. _Crowley wanted them to go to the countryside and hide until the danger had passed. It was Alpha Centauri all over again, and while the South Downs were certainly less removed than the distant stars, the prospect of living there felt no less remote. 

Later, Aziraphale would reflect that he had been too distracted. He would call himself a fool for having rejected Crowley’s offer, for demanding to be left alone when _alone _was a patently dangerous state for an angel to be in. Later, lying in a bed in the South Downs and feeling like his very soul had been carved out, he would invent countless scenarios in which he was not a fool, not a victim. 

It was an exercise as futile as standing on the hilltop overlooking the downs and fantasizing about flying away.  About _flying._

He noticed it far too late: the shadow tailing him. A human. He was skulking at a safe distance, but the intensity of his focus fell on Aziraphale like a burning brand. Stealing a furtive glance over his shoulder, the angel lengthened his stride.

_You’re being paranoid,_ he chastised. 

On the corner ahead of him, a man emerged from the shadowed recess of a doorway. His posture was utterly at ease, shoulders slouched, hands in his pockets. But the look in his eyes was pure, naked hatred. 

Aziraphale did not think – he merely acted, turning into the first path available. It was an alleyway between two buildings, narrow and dark. He broke into a run. Seconds later, he burst out onto another street, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste. Car horns screamed as headlights flashed past. Wheeling around, Aziraphale ran down the pavement, heedless of the incredulous looks of passing pedestrians. His pulse hammered behind his ears, a drumbeat of instinctual terror. He wanted to miracle himself to the safety of the bookshop, but such a feat risked further exposure. He was close. He could make it. 

Aziraphale sprinted around a corner and gasped with relief as the bookshop loomed into view. He raced toward it, feathering out his senses as he ran. There it was: the malice of those men, sullying the air like noxious fumes. There were more now, how many he could not say – five, perhaps six. He didn’t spare the seconds to count but ran to the front door, unbolting it with a flick of his fingers. He yanked the door open, toppled inside, and slammed it shut behind him. The bolt slid home with a reassuring _clank._

Panting, heart slamming, Aziraphale stumbled to the back of the bookshop. The lights were dim, the shutters drawn, but still he felt horribly exposed. Palms slick, he fumbled the telephone from its cradle and began turning the dial. 

Fists slammed on the front door. “We know you’re in there, scum! We know what you are!”

Aziraphale set his teeth and finished dialing. _I’m not here. I’m not here! Go away!_

The other end of the line rang, rang, rang interminably, but Crowley did not answer. Brackish dread filled Aziraphale’s throat. Where was he? Why couldn’t he answer his phone? Had the humans ambushed him, too?

The line clicked and Crowley’s voice filled his ears. “This is Anthony Crowley. You know what to do, do it with—”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale burst out, terror speeding ahead of sense. “Crowley, there are humans here, they know I—they know—” 

A thunderous crash struck the front door, threatening to buckle the wood inwards. The telephone slipped from Aziraphale’s grasp to bungee from the cord. He fumbled, trying to catch it, only to fall still as a familiar, choking smell fogged the dusty air. He stood motionless, disbelieving, before casting out his senses in a frantic flurry. He recoiled, nearly bent double. He knew it – every angel knew it, as surely as every demon knew the skin-crawling nearness of holy water.

_ Hellfire. _

Aziraphale was running toward a shelf before he could reconsider, his thoughts narrowing to the books, his precious books. A crate spun out of the ether and landed with a hollow _thud_ on the floor, and he was yanking books off the shelf and dumping them inside, heedless of bent pages and splayed spines. He was stupid with shock and fear, even now unsure of whether a miracle would do more harm than good. 

“Burn it!” a voice cried from beyond the door.  Aziraphale sucked in a breath as he felt the fire lick up the walls of the shop, his dear shop. They may as well have set his body aflame. 

Outside, the humans’ voices climbed in terrible unity. “Burn the scum! Burn the scum!”

The bookshop had burned once before, during Armageddon. But that had been an ordinary fire, lit by the careless topple of a candle. Hellfire was a different creature altogether. Its flames scorched with a hunger that could never be sated. It was distilled, sentient hatred born from the deepest pits of Hell, and only infernal power could suffocate it. 

Aziraphale slammed shut the lid of the crate and tucked it into a pocket between worlds. He miracled a second into existence even as his last shred of common sense screamed at him to _move the entire shop, you fool!_ Hellfire roared up the walls outside with preternatural speed, bathing the floor and shelves in its acrid glow. A second strike met the door, which buckled in a shower of woodchips. A third strike dislodged the hinges. Humans shoved past the obliterated door, unscathed by the flames. Holy water could not harm them; the same was true of hellfire. 

The time for caution was long gone. Aziraphale raised his arm, intent on pulling an immense reserve of power down from Above. He would move the entire shop and himself someplace safe, then return to search for Crowley—

The net was upon him before he could snap his fingers. Aziraphale struck the floor with a gasp, unmoored without his ethereal power. Hands fell upon the net and dragged him toward the doorway as other humans threw aside the mutilated door. Aziraphale wriggled and fought, but the net drained his strength with every passing second. He was as helpless as a fledgling blown from the nest. Desperate, he strained to look back. His last glimpse of the bookshop was ravaged by hellfire and smoke. 

“Get the knife!” one of the humans bellowed. “Test him!”

They dragged him across the pavement and away from the shop, uncaring of the scrapes and bruises he sustained along the way. Aziraphale fought with every ounce of his willpower, but he may as well have been wrestling the sea. The net siphoned power from him, the very air from his lungs, and he couldn’t _breathe—_

“What’s it to be, lads?” one man crowed.  Aziraphale twisted around to see him brandishing a blade, steel gleaming and hungry in the firelight. “Gold, black, or red?”

“Black!” one voice cried.

“Nah, it’s never black!” another guffawed. “If ‘e’s a demon, I’m the Queen of England. It’s gold.”

“I’ll bet you a tenner it’s black,” the first voice offered. As if it was a sporting match, a gamble without stakes. A distant fragment of Aziraphale’s mind noted that no voice offered up the option of _red._ They had already decided he wasn’t human.

“Guess we’ll find out,” the man with the knife laughed. He stooped over the net, burying a knee in the small of Aziraphale’s back. Aziraphale bit back a cry as the man reached down, prisoning his hand through the net, and lowered the knife. Pain flared white-hot as the ravening blade bit into his palm. 

An ordinary weapon would have drawn red blood, the blood of a typical corporeal form. This was no ordinary weapon. Aziraphale choked on a scream as the steel sheared through his corporation to wound his true form. The blood streaming from the wound was molten gold, an extract of pure sunlight. 

The man raised his arm, displaying the bloodied blade to the others. “We’ve got an angel, lads!”

Aziraphale shuddered as the others cheered. A sour taste flooded his mouth at the sight of his hand, the runnels of gold pooling between his fingers. _Crowley,_ he thought in a panicked, unspooling tendril of fear. _Crowley—_

“Carve him!” another voice cried.

Another chorus of cheers rang around him. Aziraphale strained against the net, searching for a flicker of humanity among the crowd, but all he could see was hate and disgust. Acidic firelight twisted the humans’ faces into jeering, monstrous masks. He curled in on himself, mind crying out in terror, heart drumming so swiftly he thought he might discorporate. 

The man with the knife settled a hand on Aziraphale’s nape, making him flinch away. He chuckled, his breath rank and warm. “This is what you bastards deserve, after all you’ve done to us.”

Aziraphale’s plea broke into a gasp as the man plunged the blade beneath his shoulder blade. Though not deep enough to be fatal, it was agony nonetheless. Taking care to avoid the net, the man pressed his weight upon Aziraphale, pinning him to the ground while he did his grisly work. 

Aziraphale felt it – the moment the blade struck a nerve, as sure as a mallet knocking a knee, and the resulting impulse unfurled his wings in a thwarted beat that threatened to shake the man off. He reached deep inside himself, found the last reserves of strength to fight. And, for a single, heart-stopping moment, he had hope. 

He had no sooner seized his chance it was ripped away from him. The humans converged, pinning him down by his limbs, his wings, his neck. The man with the knife grabbed a fistful of feathers and wrenched his left wing back painfully. Aziraphale stilled at the barest rasp of the blade, paralyzed by fear. Every particle of his being reached out, grasping blindly for the one being in all of Creation he could trust.

_ Crowley! _

He had known to expect pain. He had known it the moment the human brandished that terrible, ravening blade. But nothing could prepare him for the mind-blanking agony that seared through him when the human set the blade to his wing, pushed the downy coverts aside, and began to cut.

-

“Angel!” Hands on his shoulders, shaking him out of the nightmare. “Angel, wake up!”

Aziraphale comes to drenched in sweat, tears streaming from his eyes. His left shoulder prickles with phantom pain. He is stone-still, trapped under the net. 

“Angel.” Crowley’s hand moves from his shoulder to his brow, pushing back sweat-damp curls. “Aziraphale. You were having a nightmare.”

_ Not a nightmare, _ Aziraphale thinks. _A memory._ That day, that awful day when he learned how very fragile he is, how breakable. Pain skitters from his shoulder down his arm. Crowley’s other hand comes up to cover his. Aziraphale gulps in breath after breath and waits for the terror to pass. 

“I’m sorry, angel,” Crowley is saying, over and over. “I’m so sorry. I should have thought—should have known that might happen. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Aziraphale says, hollow.

“It _isn’t._” Crowley’s voice is fierce but his hands are gentle as they gather Aziraphale close. Aziraphale turns into him so they are curved together like two halves of an oyster shell. Crowley slings one arm over Aziraphale’s waist and arcs the other over his head, fingers toying with his curls. Their feet tangle, toes nudging. They are touching in a hundred different points, the layers of their clothing the only barrier between them, and Aziraphale is torn between wanting and shame and sweat-slick fear.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley is murmuring, the hand on his waist questing across to his back. Aziraphale breathes out slowly as those fingers press, clutch, explore.  “Angel, angel…”

And then his fingers wander up to Aziraphale’s left shoulder. He freezes. 

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out, and pulls away. He slips out of Crowley’s arms, sits up with dizzying speed, and stumbles off the bed. 

Crowley is up in a heartbeat. “Aziraphale, I’m—”

“Don’t,” Aziraphale cuts in. “It’s—it’s not you. It’s me. There’s something…” He can’t describe it. Broken? Wrong? Something running endless circles in his mind, wearing a rutted path of shame so deep nothing else can surface? “I have to go.”

“Go where? Angel!”

“Check the wards,” Aziraphale mutters. He stops at the doorway, spares Crowley a mournful look. “I’m so sorry, my dear.”

He’s gone before Crowley can reply.

-

Aziraphale remembers little after the human began cutting into his wing.  It’s to be expected, really – he was in and out of consciousness for a few seconds, agony dropping him into sweet oblivion before capriciously plucking him back out. He remembers screaming, fainting, screaming. The horrible _sawing noise_ as the blade bit into the humerus bone. 

He remembers swimming out of oblivion, pain thrumming in time with his pulse, to find the street corner alive with chaos. 

It was not common for angels and demons to coexist so closely. When Aziraphale was revealed as an angel, the humans lowered their guard against demons.  And Aziraphale had never seen Crowley more demonic. 

He was evil incarnate, shadow-swift, boiling out of the night to wreak havoc upon the humans. Immense and serpentine, he lashed at the human sitting astride Aziraphale, catching him up in his fangs. The blade clattered to the pavement as Crowley dragged him off and bullied him down. Torso in his jaws, legs pinned under his bulk, Crowley jerked his head and broke the screaming human’s back. He dropped the still-twitching body to the ground, a broken doll, and lunged at the next human fool enough to attack. 

Aziraphale must have slipped under after that. He remembers nothing else until he woke in the cottage, screaming and struggling to throw off the covers.

Crowley had tried to calm him, assuring him they were safe, _the humans are gone, _but Aziraphale could not be pacified. It was little comfort to crane his neck and see his wing still a part of him when every instant of awareness was a suffocation of pain. Even after he folded his wings away, the agony persisted, soul-deep. 

Despite Crowley’s best efforts, no infernal or ethereal magic could heal the wound. Only time would tell, and it was over a month before the pain began to abate. 

Aziraphale remembers little of that month. Small mercies, he supposes.  He _does_ remember asking Crowley, in a moment of clarity, what had become of the bookshop. He remembers the flash of guilt that passed over the demon’s face, followed closely by sorrow. Crowley’s voice had been gentle, so gentle as he said, “I’m sorry, angel. It’s gone.”

All his beloved books, resurrected when the end of the world was averted. And now they were gone for good.


	3. nothing was between us yet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title (and, arguably, one specific scene) is inspired by lyrics from Hadestown. ;)

Days later, in the loo – a part of the cottage visited mainly for Crowley to indulge his vanity in the mirror and his hedonism in the large, glass-walled shower – Aziraphale closes the door, shrugs off his waistcoat, and unbuttons his shirt. He folds the clothing neatly and sets it on the floor before turning, bracing himself. He looks over his shoulder. 

The scar is a vivid artery of gold against milk-pale skin. Aziraphale detests it. A year and then some has passed since he was injured, and still the scar gleams, a permanent reminder of his weakness. Of how easily he might have been torn to pieces by a rabid pack of humans. He reaches around and brushes tentative fingers to the puckered edge of tissue. For all its strange beauty, gold-dusted lacquer piecing him back together, it is fibrous and tough to the touch. 

Aziraphale looks at himself in the mirror and thinks of Crowley. The demon has been especially reserved in the last few days, spending more and more time in his garden. Aziraphale suspects he is taking his frustration out on the plants, for the vegetables are more plentiful than ever. Carrots and celery and tomatoes and squash and, yes, _aubergines, _all ripe and jewel-toned, as lovely as anything to ever grow in Eden. 

Crowley is giving him space. The typical bite is gone from his tone when Aziraphale plucks up the nerve to talk to him. Whenever they occupy the same room, he moves around slowly, as if wary of spooking a wild animal. He takes care never to touch Aziraphale, passing him books and teacups and platters of roasted vegetables with the very tips of his fingers. 

Crowley is giving him space, and it is driving Aziraphale to distraction.

Aziraphale tugs his shirt back on and buttons it in sudden haste. He loses patience in the end and goes outside with the top two buttons undone and no waistcoat at all. Afternoon sunlight slants over the trees, burnishing the walls of the cottage to rich copper. Birdsong heralds him as he pushes open the garden gate and strides into the unnaturally balmy air. Crowley, elbow-deep in a cluster of snapdragons, looks up.

“Aziraphale,” he begins, only to fall silent as the angel kneels beside him, sullying his trouser knees in the dirt. 

Aziraphale reaches out and captures Crowley’s mud-crusted hands. He draws them to his chest, anchoring Crowley to him, and demands, “How did you know I needed you?”

Crowley blinks. “What?”

“In London,” Aziraphale clarifies, and knows Crowley understands when his hands tighten into fists. “When the humans caught me. I was alone and then—and then you were there. How did you know?”

“I.” Crowley closes his mouth, swallows. “I don’t know how it happened. I just _heard you, _in my head. And I knew you needed me.”

“I called out to you,” Aziraphale says. He hadn’t divulged this, before, and shock widens Crowley’s eyes. “I called out to you with my entire being, and _you heard me.”_

Shock sprints across Crowley’s face before a fierce certainty usurps it. “I did. I heard you, I’ll always hear you, angel—”

Aziraphale surges forward, and the kiss is a clumsy, eager clack of teeth, the pain bright on his lips. Crowley huffs out a breath and Aziraphale, tasting his surprise, gentles the kiss. Crowley slips his hands free to cradle his face, the back of his neck, draw him in impossibly closer. The scent of freshly-turned earth fills Aziraphale’s senses as he settles his hands on Crowley’s waist, feels bone and sinew moving under that ridiculous, improbably posh shirt. 

“Angel,” Crowley murmurs, reverence threaded along every syllable. “Aziraphale, my _angel…”_

“I love you,” Aziraphale murmurs between kisses, and it should be embarrassing, it should be _too fast,_ but after six millennia of waiting, suddenly he can’t seem to go _fast enough._ Crowley groans against his lips, deepens the kiss, and their mouths slide together with a hunger that echoes Aziraphale’s own: the hunger of a fast gone on far too long, finally broken. “I love you, Crowley, my dearest, I—”

“I—me too. Forever, since the start, the Beginning,” Crowley babbles. Aziraphale gasps as deft fingers unknot his bowtie, exposing his throat, and he shivers in spite of the warm air.

Crowley stills. “We don’t have to,” he blurts out. “I—I’ll do anything you like. Anything you want, anything you don’t want, I’m yours.”

Aziraphale’s heart thunders, a pounding tempo of desperate wanting. He gathers his courage and pulls Crowley close, so close he knows he must _feel_ his heart racing. He kisses him as his fingers tug loose Crowley’s tie and set to the buttons of his shirt with frantic dexterity. A part of him wants to simply melt the clothes into nothingness, to get at the skin beneath as quickly as possible, but a wiser part of him counsels against it: to prolong this, preserve it like a rare bloom pressed between pages. 

Crowley breaks the kiss to shrug off his shirt. Aziraphale watches, cataloguing bruised lips, the pale hollow of his throat, every inch of skin as it is revealed. Crowley tosses the shirt aside and reaches for Aziraphale, clamoring to help peel away his clothes. The garden air is a hot balm on his bared skin, but the path Crowley laves with his tongue is cool, raising gooseflesh as he moves up to mark his throat with a faint rasp of teeth. Pleasure sings through Aziraphale’s skin to light him up from within.

“Angel,” Crowley says, rushed, “tell me what you want, tell me what I can do for you—”

“Anything,” Aziraphale says, shivering as Crowley sucks a kiss into the soft skin above his knocking pulse. “Everything, _oh, _everything, beloved.”

“Lie back,” Crowley says, tossing away his shirt. Aziraphale obeys, allowing the demon to press him down into the dirt, cool and fresh.

A slightly hysterical giggle bubbles to his lips. “There had better not be any fertilizer here, darling.”

Crowley laughs, and _oh, _what a wonder it is to hear that laugh: a free, easy sound. “Never,” he promises, moving to cover Aziraphale’s body with his own. He kisses his lips and Aziraphale arches, pulling him down so their bodies meet. They have not yet done away with their trousers, but he can feel Crowley’s effort straining hot and hard against his own through the layers of clothing, and he grinds up into it with a groan. Crowley breaks the kiss with a groan. “_Fuck, _angel_.”_

“Please,” Aziraphale breathes, and Crowley kisses the corner of his mouth, the mark at his throat. He moves away, moves _down, _fingers threading with Aziraphale’s as he smears kisses over his sternum, his belly. Every touch of his lips builds upon a wave of sensation that rushes down to the cradle of his hips, to his straining cock.

Crowley’s hands hesitate at his flies. “Yes?”

Aziraphale bites back a whine, but only just. _“Yes.”_

Crowley chuckles. “Bit impatient, are we?” But his hands fumble in their haste to undo his flies and drag the trousers down. Aziraphale steals a glance, sees Crowley’s head bent between his legs, and gulps in a breath before dropping his head back to the dirt. The cloudless sky wheels above him.

Crowley dispenses with his trousers and socks before crawling up to hook his fingers on the waistband of Aziraphale’s pants. He tugs the pants down, freeing Aziraphale’s cock to bob against his belly, hot and eager. His golden gaze is covetous and Aziraphale sinks his hands into the dirt, feeling soil spill between his fingers as he fights an urge to chase, grip, _take. _

“Please,” he whimpers.

Crowley digs his fingers into Aziraphale’s hips and lowers his head. His sense of urgency has vanished, replaced by the languid slide of his mouth on his cock, and Aziraphale chokes on a breath as he lingers at the slit, tasting and tonguing and lavishing. The pressure is _just there _but _not enough_. Aziraphale pushes his heels into the dirt and tries to move his hips, but Crowley’s hands are firm, pinning him down.

“Crowley,” he moans.

“In time,” Crowley murmurs. One of his hands rubs a circle over Aziraphale’s hip while the other moves to his cock, pushing back the foreskin for his tongue to explore the glans in lazy, lapping strokes. Aziraphale grips the dirt as pleasure soars through him. 

Crowley draws back to look at him, tongue darting out to lick spit-slick lips. “Fuck, Aziraphale, you’re gorgeous like this.”

A keening note trembles out of Aziraphale. “My love, _please…”_

“Beautiful,” Crowley mumbles, dipping back down to take Aziraphale’s cock in his mouth. Aziraphale moans, hands flying up to grip hellfire hair, holding on tight and fighting every urge in his body to fuck into the wet heat of that mouth. Crowley bobs his head, taking him deeper, and his hand frees Aziraphale’s hip to reach down and cup his sac. A finger brushes the tight furl of muscle behind and Aziraphale _sobs_, torn between pushing down and bowing up. 

Crowley pulls off Aziraphale’s cock with an obscene sound and looks up, eyes a haze of sun-warmed honey, lips swollen and red. “Tell me—”

“Your fingers,” Aziraphale barks, “_now, _or your cock, _please_…”

Crowley moans, pressing his brow to Aziraphale’s thigh. “You’re going to be the _end _of me, angel.”

His fingers return before Aziraphale can voice another demand, miraculously slick because they are in the garden, in the _dirt,_ and there’s nothing as practical as lube to prepare him here. Aziraphale pants as Crowley presses one into him, gentle but insistent, feeling his body slowly open to the intrusion. 

“More,” he demands. Crowley only smirks, kisses the head of his cock, and adds another finger as he takes him between his lips.

For a time, Aziraphale hovers on the knife-edge of _not enough _and _too much. _He had no idea his body was capable of lighting up like this, a great symphony of blazing nerve endings, each one singing on the same note like a plucked harp string. He has lain with humans before, but those tumbles had been idle curiosities, vaguely pleasant but nothing immense – not like this, not a pleasure that threatens to overwhelm him. Crowley adds another finger at his demand, stretches him open, but it isn’t enough.

“Angel,” Crowley says, pressing a kiss to the crease of his thigh, “please.”

_“Yes.”_

Crowley’s fingers are gone but he is kneeling close, trousers shoved down, the head of his cock pushing between his cheeks to press at his hole. Aziraphale grabs blindly at Crowley as he pushes in, not yet filling him, giving him time to adjust. 

“Harder,” Aziraphale begs, but Crowley moves by increments, pulling back before he can find the leverage to claim more. It’s maddening, a tease, and Aziraphale would weep if it didn’t feel so bloody _perfect._ Words have deserted him, leaving him stranded with _yes _and _perfect_ and _more, more, my love, more,_ but Crowley needs no more, and his thrusts steadily grow deeper, touching a place inside that renders Aziraphale incoherent. He is reduced to broken moans as Crowley fucks him deeper, faster, _harder._

“Touch yourself,” Crowley grunts, fingers bruising on his waist. Aziraphale wastes no time in complying. He grips his cock, every uncannily-slick squeeze and stroke magnifying the mounting pleasure. Each snap of Crowley’s hips pushes him closer, closer, until he is tipping off the edge with a shout. Come streaks his belly and his chest and he is spasming, clenching, and Crowley follows, buried to the hilt and spilling deep inside him. 

“Fuck,” he gasps, shaking. _“Fuck.”_

Aziraphale drags in a breath, his entire body a raw wire of feeling. His arms are a separate entity, acting of their own volition to curl around Crowley and hold him close. Crowley shivers, oversensitive, and pulls out. He drags his fingers through the come on Aziraphale’s chest and licks them clean. 

Aziraphale throws an arm over his face with a huffed laugh. “Goodness.”

“You taste nice,” Crowley announces. “More than nice. _Scrumptious_.”

“Stop. Have mercy, for pity’s sake.”

“Nnngh. Nah.” Crowley licks him clean and Aziraphale can only cover his face, laughing and mortified. When he is sated, the demon pushes gently at his arm. Aziraphale opens his eyes and smiles up at him. 

“Yes?” As if Crowley is about to pester him for a cup of tea, a turn reading the paper.

Crowley studies him for a silent moment. Then, exhaling the word “mine,” he lowers himself for a slow, deep kiss. Aziraphale tastes himself on his tongue, tastes love and lust and the fresh-turned earth of the garden. 

“Come on,” Crowley says when they part. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale raises a hand to his mussed, filthy curls. “Oh, my.”

“Quite right.” Crowley stands on coltish legs, offers him a hand. “And after that, we can try out the bed.”

Grinning, Aziraphale takes the proffered hand. 

-

Time passes. When you are ageless, as old as the world, time does that: rushes out of your grasp like the waters of a delta, each drop a day, a month, a year, and the sea beyond the boundless past. Aziraphale has often felt helpless against that current, but now he is determined to savor every instant, to let nothing to go waste. 

Time passes, and Aziraphale is the happiest he has been since they arrived at the cottage. Under Crowley’s tutelage, he learns the human trick of sleeping and discovers, unsurprisingly, a decadent knack for the pastime. If sleeping were a competition, he fancies he would give Crowley a run for his money. As it is, there can be no losers when every morning finds them basking in the lazy comfort of waking from a deep sleep, taking their time to surface, lingering over light touches and shared warmth. Often as not, these touches unravel into more – sometimes languid and exploratory, sometimes urgent and greedy, hands gripping, lips searching, bodies entwined and moving together. This, too, Aziraphale is determined to preserve. 

Crowley’s gardening continues apace. As the weeks drag into months, the line between reality and his imagination grows blurred. The vegetables he brings to the table take on new flavors, here fresh and airy, there sweet and heady. There are even a few plants Aziraphale has not seen in thousands of years, aquamarine and violet fruits with the incongruous aftertaste of spices. Their names can only be uttered in angelic languages, as Adam never set eyes on them and so never named them. They never left the garden. 

Aziraphale begins to accept Crowley’s affection – and giving_Crowley_affection – as his due. He enjoys ambushing the demon in his garden now and then, teacups or glasses of water in hand. “You never drink enough water,” he admonishes.

Crowley rolls his eyes, aggrieved. “Yes, likely because we don’t_need_to.” Both leave it unsaid that they don’t need to eat, either, so the garden and its bounties are not strictly necessary. 

Aziraphale tuts and hands him the glass. “Indulge me.”

“Let you plague me, you mean.”

“Of course.” Aziraphale leans in, stealing a soft, smearing kiss. Crowley startles before melting into the kiss with a sigh. Aziraphale draws back and rubs his thumb over a smudge of soil on Crowley’s cheek. “Unless you would rather be rid of me?”

“Don’t be daft,” Crowley mutters, and pulls him in again.

Months stream into years. Aziraphale rereads the books in his crate, memorizing larger and larger passages each time. Every so often, Crowley will remark on the need for a bookshelf, and Azirphale, easing into their new arrangement, delights in tormenting him with all sorts of replies. 

“You’ve said that a dozen times, dear boy,” Aziraphale replies to Crowley’s latest musing on the need for a bookshelf. “Tell me, if I were to take you apart with my mouth or my cock, would you be more amenable to setting one up? Because I’m not opposed to a little _quid pro quo.”_

Aziraphale does not get his bookshelf that day, but he makes good on his threat nonetheless. In the bedroom, he pushes Crowley onto the bed, naked and flushed and hard. Aziraphale, fully-clothed, proceeds to unravel him with unhurried lips and a very attentive tongue. Once he has marked a path down Crowley’s throat, over his nipples and down to the concave curve of his stomach, he spends an untold time languorously licking and sucking his cock while his fingers work him open. When Crowley is gasping, shaking, Aziraphale pulls back and looks down at his handiwork. He can never get enough of this sight: of Crowley, sharp-edged and fiery, writhing against the cream-colored sheets. (Crowley grumbled about the sheets when Aziraphale first procured them, but he never complains when Aziraphale fucks him on them, so he can’t mind all that much.)

“Angel,” Crowley says between clenched teeth, “fuck, angel, _please…”_

“Of course, my love,” Aziraphale says. “Anything for you.”

He lowers himself, intent, but inspiration strikes: how simple it would be, for his hands and mouth to simply trade tasks. Crowley shakes and curses as Aziraphale fucks him with his tongue, one leg thrown over his shoulder and the other bent back by a firm hand. Aziraphale’s free hand squeezes and strokes his cock as he sucks and licks at his hole. Crowley comes _wailing, _and it is only when he is boneless and trembling and swearing that Aziraphale crawls forward, frees his cock from his trousers and pants, and fucks his fist until he comes all over Crowley’s face.

These moments, he will reflect later, are the purest joy he has ever known.

One year passes, and each morning, Aziraphale checks the wards. All eight hold strong, day in and day out, but sometimes he checks them twice. It sooths him.

-

Aziraphale is seated on his bench, lingering over a particularly lovely, summer-lush sunrise when he feels it: a presence crashing through the wards with all the blazing recklessness of a comet. He jumps to his feet and races down the hill.

_You could fly,_ a small, insidious voice whispers – the last of his courage, not yet beaten into a pulp. Terror drowns the voice out and Aziraphale runs, runs as fast as he ever has, because he knows if he unfurls his wings, he will only fall. Pain spiders up his shoulder in silent accord. 

He is half-way down the hill before it occurs to him to reach up and seize a handful of ethereal power. It’s been so long since he did something substantial; the power feels raw in his hand, electric, exhilarating. He snaps his fingers and he is in the kitchen of the cottage, panting and shivering with the aftershocks of the miracle.

Gabriel leans against the counter, arms crossed. “Huh. So, you’ve still got it.”

“What…” Aziraphale trails off, dragging in a breath as he casts his senses out in search of Crowley. The demon is hiding behind a hydrangea shrub, having taken cover the moment he realized an Archangel was barreling into their home. 

Aziraphale licks his lips and musters a semblance of composure, if not civility. “Gabriel. What a pleasant surprise.”

Gabriel huffs out a derisive laugh and Aziraphale blinks in surprise. It’s not like the Archangel to be so self-aware – he would sooner use another angel as a stepping stone than waste time wondering whether or not he should tread lightly.

Aziraphale takes a moment to study Gabriel. The Archangel looks… haggard, hair mussed, face drawn, shadows cutting like crags beneath his eyes. He looks, Aziraphale realizes, more _lived in_ than he ever has. And while Aziraphale has grown to love his body, the same is clearly not true of Gabriel. The creature staring back at him with those ice-amethyst eyes is suffocating, a pupating insect prisoned by its own cocoon. 

“Would you care for a cup of tea?” Aziraphale asks, mollified. 

Gabriel sneers. “I have never liked gross matter. Don’t see why I would start now.”

“A-ah.” Aziraphale casts about the kitchen for some form of hospitality, but nothing presents itself. He gestures lamely at the wooden chairs around the kitchen table, but Gabriel makes no move to take a seat. So, it is to be strictly business. “I assume you didn’t come all this way just to pay a social call.”

“Of course not.” Gabriel uncrosses his arms and pushes off the counter. “Things are growing dire, Aziraphale. We need you on the battlefield.”

Aziraphale goes cold. The words he finds feel detached, as if they could not possibly have come from his throat. “I no longer consider myself a soldier.”

Gabriel’s eyes darken, the grim mask buckling beneath ill-contained fury. “I don’t give a flying _fuck_ what you consider yourself. We’re far past that luxury.” His fingers curl into fists. “You saw my missive, yes?”

_My missive. _The words are dropped so casually, as if the envelope had contained only a simple, unassuming letter and not the nightmarish slaughter of Sandalphon. Aziraphale swallows. “I… yes. I did.”

“So, you know Sandalphon is dead. Butchered by those human _worms.” _Gabriel’s lips peel back like a feral dog’s, showing his teeth. “And still, you can sit here playing house and pretend this has nothing to do with you.”

Pain spasms through Aziraphale’s shoulder and down his arm. Clenching his left hand, he takes a steadying breath. “It… it doesn’t. I’m not fit for battle, Gabriel—”

“Any angel who can wield a blade is fit for battle,” Gabriel cuts in. “As I said, we are beyond the luxury of choosing.” His hand reaches to an inner pocket of his coat – no longer dove-gray and clean, but dingy, frayed at the cuffs – and draws out a blade. Aziraphale stares, dumbfounded, as Gabriel sets the unkindled flaming sword on the table. “I brought you this. You don’t deserve it, but it’s yours, and I need you to use it and help us eradicate the humans once and for all.”

A small, hateful part of Aziraphale longs to reach out and take up the sword, to pay back the humans for his suffering. He crushes the thought, shame sour in his mouth. He tears his gaze away from the sword. “I can’t do that. I gave it up long ago. And—and doesn’t it seem like playing with fire, trying to kill them all? Aren’t the humans the Almighty’s favored chil—”

“The Almighty is gone.” Gabriel’s tone is flat. “She’s abandoned us. Believe me, I’ve tried getting in touch, but wherever She is, She either can’t hear me or She doesn’t care.” He shrugs, but the gesture does little to banish the sorrow lingering in his eyes. Whatever Gabriel’s faults, Aziraphale realizes, he had faith. And now, his faith has given him nothing but dead comrades and empty hopes. “How this war ends is up to us, Aziraphale. We either fight or we die. Possibly both.”

“I’ve never known you to be so bleak,” Aziraphale says.

A humorless bark of laughter. “Yeah, well. Try watching your comrade get hacked to pieces and see how optimistic you feel.”

The words slip out of Aziraphale’s grasp before he can catch them. “I have. You made sure of that.”

Gabriel’s gaze sharpens. The sham of amusement disappears from his face, replaced by disdain. “And yet, here you are. I know you and Sandalphon were never particularly chummy, but I expected better from you.”

Aziraphale knows he shouldn’t cause trouble, but the defensiveness is an impulse beyond his control. He scoffs. “What… you thought I would storm London, sword blazing, eager to smite every human within sight?”

_“Yes!” _Gabriel roars, startling in his intensity. Aziraphale retreats a step as the Archangel slams his fists down on the table, making the wood creak in protest.“You were the best of us, once! You were the guardian of the Eastern Gate! What happened to that angel? Where did his fire go? How can you sit here and do nothing when you know we’re dying?”

“I-I…” Aziraphale flounders. “That is…”

He glances to the kitchen window, toward the garden, and Gabriel follows his gaze. A sneer twists his mouth. “It’s him, isn’t it. The demon. Crowley.” He looks around, nose wrinkling. “This whole cottage reeks of him. Even _you_ smell like…” He trails off, and something in Aziraphale’s reaction must betray him, because Gabriel’s eyes widen in shock. Shock, and utter revulsion. “Oh. Oh, for the love of—you can’t be serious.”

Aziraphale lifts his chin and squares his shoulders. “I am.”

Another mirthless laugh breaks out of Gabriel’s chest. He presses a hand to his brow, mussing the already-wayward strands. “This just gets better and better, doesn’t it? Not only are you hiding from the war like a coward, no – you’ve _shacked up _with a demon?” He looks sickened. “What the Hell is wrong with you?”

“You just said Heaven and Hell were allies—”

“Allies, yes – out of necessity!” Gabriel cries. “Because without them, we’re as good as dead! But I would never—” He cuts himself short with a grimace. “You’re obscene. We may have allied ourselves with Hell, but I would never stoop to _sullying_ myself with one of them.” He looks at Aziraphale, disgusted. “You should be ashamed.”

Anger boils up in Aziraphale’s chest. Hands balling into fists, he says, “Well, I’m not. I never will be. Crowley is—” He tries to frame what Crowley is, but every word in every known language is suddenly inadequate. He shakes his head. “I was blind, before. Obeying you and Michael and the others even when I knew it was wrong. I thought, _if the Almighty has given them power, who am I to question it? _But She wasn’t keeping tabs on you. You’ve said so yourself. She’s gone, and if the humans hate Heaven now, it’s because of you and the other Archangels.”

The words hit Gabriel like a slap. The Archangel glowers, teeth bared. “They hate you, too. They would like nothing better than to see you dead, no matter how much of a traitor and coward you are.” He waves at the sword, lying inert on the table. “Stop deluding yourself, Aziraphale. Your best chance of survival is with us.”

Now it is Aziraphale’s turn to laugh. “How can that be? You tried to _burn me! _You would have scorched me out of existence if you’d had your way!”

“I can’t believe you’re still stuck on that,” Gabriel says, rolling his eyes. “We have to deal with the crisis _now_. A single angel could turn the tide of this war. If we don’t use every weapon in our arsenal, the humans _will _destroy us all. Heaven, Hell, it’ll all be gone. Is that what you want?”

Aziraphale speaks the words through gritted teeth, self-possession slithering out of his grip. “I want to be left it peace.”

“None of us get what we want,” Gabriel retorts. “Not anymore. You had a hand in all this mess—oh, don’t look so surprised, of course I figured it out. That’s always been your problem, Aziraphale. You think you’re so much smarter than everybody else. Did you really think I couldn’t put two and two together? That you suddenly lost your flaming sword when Adam and Eve left the garden? You _gave them war, _and now they’re giving it back to us. The least you could do is confront the mess you’ve made.”

The weight of guilt presses down on Aziraphale, threatens to crush him. His own fears – little-assuaged by Crowley’s ministrations – rush to the surface. _Your fault. Your fault. It’s all your fault. _“I—I never meant…”

Gabriel continues as if he hasn’t spoken. “I never bothered punishing you for the sword when I found out. Living on this desolate hunk of rock was retribution enough, I thought. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe if I’d hurt you, you wouldn’t think you could do whatever you pleased.” A beat, silent and shockingly cold: the moment glacial air enters the lungs, startling them still. “Maybe I should hurt you now.”

Aziraphale has stopped breathing. He isn’t even certain his heart is still beating, needless flesh that it is. “What do you…”

“But hurting you wouldn’t be enough, would it?” Gabriel continues. His eyes flick to the kitchen window. “We need you fighting fit, anyway. No sense in breaking you before we send you out to battle.”

Gabriel moves toward the front door, toward the path that will take him to the garden. Aziraphale follows. His hand closes over Gabriel’s shoulder. “Don’t. You mustn’t—”

“This is for the greater good, Aziraphale,” Gabriel says, shrugging off his hold. His violet eyes are flinty, his chin set. “In the grand scheme of things, you’re worth more than that demon. And once the war is over, we’ll get you fixed up. No more obscene impulses.” Despite his grim expression, his tone is all patience. As if Aziraphale is a child throwing a tantrum over some trifling thing. The Archangel reaches for the door handle. “Everything will be as it should.”

_“No!”_

The cry bursts out of Aziraphale, raw and sharp as desperation cuts to the heart of him, unleashes something that has been buried for thousands of years. He had thought it dead, never to return, but now he grasps the edge of a breathing, dust-rattling sense. It was entombed, quiescent. Waiting for him to break the shackles and release it. They are broken, now, and the power is a lion in his breast, claws of ethereal might lashing out of him to strike. Gabriel crumples under the onslaught and struggles upright, gathering power in his hand to retaliate.

Aziraphale does not let him. With eagle swiftness and bullish strength, he charges Gabriel, barrels him to the floor. The flaming sword is called to his hand in a heartbeat, point aimed at the Archangel’s pale throat. Aziraphale twitches his hand and watches a hair-thin line part the skin, blood beading to the surface. The lion part of him snarls for more. 

Gabriel swallows, throat bobbing. “Ah… Aziraphale, don’t… don’t make a mistake you’ll regret.”

“I assure you,” Aziraphale says, “I would never regret it. Even if the world ended in flames, I would never regret it for a moment.” He lifts his chin, eyes flicking toward the ceiling. “I want you to leave, now.”

“This just proves my point!” Gabriel splutters. “I-If you can do this, that means—”

“I will not fight. I’m done doing your work. Let me make something very clear, Gabriel.” Aziraphale applies the barest pressure and a rivulet of gold streams out of the cut. “If you ever cross my wards again, I will destroy you. And when I’m done with you, there won’t even be enough left for the humans to mangle. Do you understand?”

“Aziraphale—”

_“Do you understand?”_

After a long, tense moment, Gabriel nods. Aziraphale lowers the blade as the Archangel rises to his feet. “You’re going to regret this, you know. If you live long enough.”

“Get out.”

The look in Gabriel’s eyes is hatred, distilled in its purest form. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but a glance at the golden blood on Aziraphale’s sword silences him. Standing, he dusts off his coat in a show of distaste. He vanishes in a blinding flash of light. Gone.

No sooner has he disappeared than Crowley bursts through the door, looking positively manic. His hair is askew, his clothing smudged with dirt. He brandishes a set of gardening shears in his gloved hands.

“Aziraphale!” he cries. “What—oh.”

Aziraphale stares at the shears in bemusement. “Were you going to use those on Gabriel?”

Crowley looks down at his feet. “I—I may have panicked.”

Aziraphale gives a shaky laugh at the absurdity of it. Residual power courses through him in a dizzying rush. He shivers as it pools, molten and potent, in the pit of his belly. _Oh, that’s—that’s rather nice, I wonder… _

He clears his throat, but the words still emerge in a rasp. “No need to worry, my dear. He’s—he’s gone, now. He won’t be troubling us anymore.”

“Right,” Crowley answers, abstractedly. It seems that whatever daze has ensnared Aziraphale has claimed him, too. He sets the shears down on the table, watching Aziraphale all the while with a strange mixture of wariness and wanting.

A moment of silence shivers between them, a suspended breath. Aziraphale tries to calm himself, tries to anchor his thoughts to the moment. Gabriel was just here. Gabriel threatened Crowley, and Aziraphale will _not_ let anyone hurt Crowley, because Crowley is _his—_

“You’re mine,” he says, and it’s a paltry substitute for the terror drowning his wits as it reroutes into possessive love. 

Crowley nods, his gaze a hot brand on Aziraphale’s skin. “Yes.”

In the space of a heartbeat, the flaming sword is gone, tucked away into another dimension for safekeeping. Aziraphale crosses the kitchen to the door where Crowley stands. It is a short distance, covered by three long strides, before he catches the demon up in his arms, pins him flat against the tiled wall. 

“You’re mine,” he repeats, pressing his lips to the pale skin at Crowley’s throat, tasting his rabbit-quick pulse. 

_“Yes.”_

Aziraphale closes in, bringing their bodies together. He can feel every lissome line of Crowley against him, sleek and sharp and _alive, so alive,_ and Aziraphale’s cock is a hard ridge in his trousers. Crowley groans as it presses into his thigh, turns his hips so they can align and rut in frantic rhythm. 

“Mine,” Aziraphale grunts, moving his mouth to the hinge of Crowley’s jaw, the shell of his ear. 

_“Fuck,” _Crowley hisses. His hands are frantic, vanishing the filthy gloves the apron. In any other mood, Aziraphale might have chided him to keep the apron on, just to tease – but not now. Now, his blood sings with ethereal, animal power, and he cannot help Crowley vanish his clothing quickly _enough. _The demon’s trousers and pants melt into nothing beneath his fingers and he grips his prick, stiff and hot and glistening. Crowley groans and presses his brow to Aziraphale’s shoulder. _“Fuck.”_

“Want you,” Aziraphale says, rasping his teeth over his throat as he strokes him. “Want—”

“Yes,” Crowley gasps. “Yes, anything—”

Kissing, fumbling with Aziraphale’s bowtie, they stumble toward the kitchen table. Crowley has the presence of mind to shove the shears away; they skitter across the table and fall to the floor with a clatter, but neither of them cares one whit for that. Crowley sucks in a sharp breath as Aziraphale pushes him to bend over, elbows on the tabletop and back bowed, bare arse tilted up in invitation. Aziraphale takes a moment to study him as he struggles to undo his flies: the long, lithe curve of his spine, the creamy topography of skin folded over muscle and bone. Aziraphale has never been more desperate to have him.

He snaps his fingers and Crowley gasps, his cock jerking between his thighs as the miracle does its work. “Sorry,” Aziraphale mutters, pulling down his pants and freeing his cock, giving himself a hasty stroke.

“Nah—no,” Crowley stammers. “Just—just feels—funny. But _good.”_

“Good.” Aziraphale lines himself up, nudging his cock against Crowley’s slick, open hole. “Yes?”

_“Yes—”_

Crowley has no sooner uttered the word than Aziraphale is thrusting forward, sheathing himself in a single stroke. Crowley moans, fingers groping for purchase on the flat tabletop. Aziraphale pulls out slowly, watching where their bodies are joined, until just the tip remains inside. Crowley tries to move his hips, tries to fuck himself on Aziraphale’s cock, but Aziraphale holds him fast at the hips, commanding the pace. He stands motionless for a moment and admires the sight of Crowley’s stretched, twitching hole around his prick. 

_“Aziraphale,” _Crowley gasps, “please, I need you to…”

Aziraphale rolls his hips, burying himself deep, and Crowley presses his brow to the tabletop with a cry. Fingers digging into his hips, Aziraphale fucks him with fast, shallow thrusts, chasing his own pleasure. Normally, he would tend to Crowley first, make sure he’s reached his peak before him.

Not now. Now, Aziraphale is thrumming with a power he can’t quite contain, potent and dizzying. His mind is a tumult of fury, desperation, and possessive instinct. He is strong enough to drive off Gabriel, strong enough to keep them safe. Crowley is _his_ as much as he is Crowley’s, and he will raze Heaven and Hell and Earth to rubble before they are sundered. 

Aziraphale fucks Crowley hard and fast and needful, and Crowley is babbling, body flushed red under Aziraphale’s hands. “Angel, angel, _fuck, _harder—I’m yours, _hah, _only yours—”

Aziraphale thrusts in to the hilt and moans, eyes clamped shut, every muscle gone rigid as he comes and comes. Crowley is tight around him, _so tight,_ _fuck,_ and so perfect Aziraphale never wants to leave. He lingers with a few halfhearted thrusts, waiting until he becomes too sensitive to bear it. Pulling out, he kneels, spreads Crowley’s cheeks, and laps greedily at his hole.

“Fuck,” Crowley gasps. It’s as if Aziraphale has stripped down his entire vocabulary, reduced it to _yes_ and _fuck_ and _Aziraphale_ and _yours. _“Fuck.”

Aziraphale rises to his feet, maneuvers Crowley so they stand face to face, and kisses him. Crowley sighs against his lips as Aziraphale wraps a hand around his prick, still hard and blood-hot. He strokes him as he shakes and shakes and shatters with the taste of Aziraphale’s come on his lips. 

After, they part and stare at each other in a daze. Silence stretches between them. Aziraphale averts his gaze, abashed. “Er. I hope I wasn’t too…”

“No.” Crowley bites his lip. “No, you were… you were perfect.”

“I… I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Crowley’s ears go pink. “Um. A little. Wasn’t anything I didn’t want. To be honest, it was fucking brilliant.”

Aziraphale tucks himself back into his trousers, feeling unaccountably shy. “Thank you.”

“You’re bothered by it.”

“I don’t like the idea of _hurting _you.”

“Well.” Crowley stands, naked and unselfconscious and so, _so _beautiful. He tips Aziraphale’s chin up for another kiss. “Let’s have a little lie-in and you can take care of me.”

Aziraphale, smiling, allows himself to be led to the bedroom. 


	4. oh, the left

Aziraphale only realizes how long it’s been since they saw Newt and Anathema when the pair return to the cottage for a visit. Crowley, having secured his wary agreement before extending the invite, is all but vibrating with excitement.

“I didn’t think you cared for them that much,” Aziraphale says, amused, as he watches the demon root around in the cellar for a bottle of wine. The cellar is immense, dark and cool and slightly damp. Crowley, despite his optimism about how little time they would spend at the cottage, had ensured a hefty store of drink. Not that they’ve been here for a few years, they know to ration the wine with care.

“What gave you that idea?” Crowley asks. He pulls a bottle off the shelf, inspects the label, and puts it back. 

“We barely know them.”

A shrug. “How well do you need to know someone when you’ve nearly experienced the end of the world together?”

“If that’s the case,” Aziraphale says tartly, “perhaps you should invite Sergeant Shadwell and Madame Tracy over. I _did _share her body, after all.”

Crowley shudders. “Nah. I’ve got standards, same as you.” He lifts a Bordeaux from the shelf. “This will do nicely.”

Aziraphale huffs a sigh. He hadn’t wanted to let the humans come, but when Crowley asked – casually posing the question after a gloriously lazy morning spent riding his cock – Aziraphale hadn’t found it in his heart to refuse. He dislikes the idea of Newt and Anathema at the cottage, and he likes the idea of sharing their precious stock of wine even less. 

“Don’t worry, angel,” Crowley says. He presses a kiss to Aziraphale’s cheek as he moves toward the stairs. “This vintage is absolute rubbish.”

-

As it happens, Aziraphale needn’t have worried. Crowley opens the front door to admit Newt and Anathema, and the latter is preceded at length by her belly. Aziraphale stares, momentarily confused, and does a mental count. It’s been two years since they last saw them. Human pregnancies don’t last that long, surely.

The mystery is solved when a dark-haired girl peeks out from behind Anathema’s skirts, blue eyes inquisitive but wary. 

“A-ah,” Aziraphale says. “Who is this young lady?”

“Elena,” Anathema says. “Come on, say hello.” Elena clings to her mother’s leg, turning her face away, and Anathema sighs. “She’s not fond of strangers. Sorry.”

“Not at all,” Aziraphale says, faintly grateful he won’t be required to interact much with the girl. He didn’t mind co-Godparenting Warlock, but ever since the Antichrist-That-Wasn’t’s eleventh birthday party, he’s been a little on edge around children. “Congratulations. Again.”

“Thanks,” Anathema sighs. “Wasn’t what we expected, but. We’re excited.”

She sounds far from excited, but Aziraphale holds his tongue. Crowley slithers over to kneel beside Elena. She buries her face in her mother’s skirt, whimpering.

“Hallo,” Crowley says, in a tone that once charmed the first birds down from the boughs of Eden. “My name’s Anthony.”

Elena turns a curious blue eye on him. A furrow creases her brow. “You look funny.”

“Elena,” Anathema begins, but Crowley only grins. 

“Suppose so,” he says. “Do you like flowers, Elena?”

“Yes,” the little girl says.

“Well, I was just about to ask your mummy to come look at the garden with me. There are loads of flowers out there. You can come too, if you like.”

“That sounds nice,” Anathema says, brightening. “Come on, _mi amor_. Let’s go look at the flowers.”

As the three head outside, Aziraphale offers Newt a seat and a glass of wine. “No wine for me, thanks,” Newt says. “It makes me so sleepy. But if you could spare a cup of tea…”

Aziraphale obliges, relieved he won’t have to part with any wine. Despite Crowley’s blasé sense of charity, none of their stock can be rightfully called _rubbish._ He brews up some oolong and, feeling magnanimous, locates one of the last sleeves of chocolate biscuits. Newt absolutely beams when he brings them out. 

“Not much in the way of biscuits in London, anymore,” he admits, nibbling judiciously on the corner of one. “It’s all rationed now. We mostly have beans and bread that tastes like nothing.” His eyes widen and a flush rises to his cheeks. “Sorry. Not complaining.”

“Don’t fret,” Aziraphale says. “What about little Elena? And the baby…?”

“Elena gets what she needs. The baby will, too.” Saying these things, Newt is transformed into another man – one leaner, more haggard, but as tough as a strip of leather. Aziraphale does not doubt his children will have food, even if it means he will go hungry. 

How simple would it be, he wonders, to give them a little of their own stores? To multiply carrots and aubergines and tomatoes and green beans, feeding the little family until the gaunt, stretched look is gone from their faces? The impulse sings within him, power begging to be unleashed. He could make Newt and Anathema’s lives so much easier with a snap of his fingers.

But—but if the two went back to London, back to civilization, what would the other humans think? What would they make of feast from famine? Newt and Anathema wouldn’t volunteer Aziraphale and Crowley’s location, perhaps, but the information could be extracted from them. And then the humans would come, press up close against the wards to lay siege to the cottage. Or they might invent new tools to break through Aziraphale’s power, swarm the cottage, carve them into pieces. 

No, Aziraphale decides. He must think of their safety first and foremost. A little charity isn’t worth the risk. 

“Anyway,” Newt says, oblivious to his musings, “odds are we won’t be in Dorking much longer. Now that my mum’s… well, we’re moving. It’s not safe, that close to London.”

Aziraphale remembers Gabriel’s memories, the charred husks of buildings, the taste of ashes in the air. “Oh?”

“The Freedom Fighters are getting stronger. More power, more resources, more politicians in their pockets. They’re totally out of control. Practically run London, now, and anyone who doesn’t madly support them is considered a threat.”

Aziraphale’s mouth has gone dry. He takes a sip of tea, trying to drown the arid tang, but it does little good. “That sounds awful.”

Newt nods. “It gets worse. They’re…” He swallows, looks at the floor. “It’s horrible.”

“Tell me,” Aziraphale says, even as a part of him shrinks away from knowing. He has to hear this, has to affirm he and Crowley did the right thing.

Newt licks his lips, face ashen. “They hang up angels and demons. In cathedrals and churches, I mean. They hang up the bodies and let them…”

“That’s enough,” Aziraphale says, swallowing back sour bile. Newt stares at his feet, abashed, and he adds, “I’m sorry, dear boy.”

“Nothing for you to be sorry about,” Newt sighs. “I’m… I’m just glad we’re leaving Dorking, I suppose. I don’t want Elena or the baby to grow up in that kind of place.”

“Indeed,” says Aziraphale. “Where do you think you’ll go?”

“Dunno.” Newt clasps his hands together on the tabletop. “We were thinking we’d go live with Anathema’s family, in California, but they’re near Malibu and that’s getting dangerous, too. We were talking about going to the countryside. Someplace more remote.”

Aziraphale waits in silence. A band of iron winds around his heart, squeezes painfully tight. He doesn’t want them _here, _not in the South Downs. They can go to any other countryside the world has on offer, but they cannot come here. The South Downs is Aziraphale and Crowley’s refuge. To bring Newt and Anathema’s family here would be to invite constant reminders of the ugliness beyond the wards. 

“Well,” Aziraphale says, veering onto another subject, “are you both ready for the little one? Anathema looks like her time could come any minute.”

“Yeah,” Newt says. “Got most things sorted. It’s not enough, I mean, it wasn’t with Elena. But we’re as ready as we’re going to be.”

“Do you know what it is?” Aziraphale prompts. “Or are you—”

“Boy,” says Newt, unthinkingly cutting him short. “Oh. Sorry. We had the scan ages ago.”

“Don’t fret.” Aziraphale lifts his cup for a sip. “You know, last time I asked you that, you said you didn’t care what it was.”

“Did I?” Newt blinks, befuddled. He looks so _tired, _a young man who only ever wanted to live a happy, uncomplicated life. And now, he’s going to be raising two children in the midst of a war. He’s barely more than a child himself.

Aziraphale shakes off the pity weighing upon him. “Yes. You said you only cared that it was happy and healthy.”

“Oh,” Newt says, faintly. He looks toward the kitchen window. Beyond, bathed in sunlight, Crowley bends his head to let Elena tuck a flower behind his ear. “Do you know, that sounds like an awful lot to ask for. These days, I mean.”

-

That evening, as Newt and Anathema load up the Land Rover, Elena shocks everyone by throwing her arms around Crowley’s legs. “Bye-bye, Anty!”

“It’s _Anthony, _sweetie,” Anathema says.

“It’s no bother,” Crowley replies. “I can be her Anty. Or Auntie, even.” He flicks a glance at Aziraphale. “Haven’t done the nanny gig in a while. I almost miss it.”

“Oh, hush,” Aziraphale says. He pushes the last sleeve of chocolate biscuits into Newt’s hands. “For the journey home.”

Newt’s face takes on the blotchy red of a man about to dissolve into tears, so Anathema sweeps in. “Thank you.” She startles Aziraphale with a hug, drawing back to kiss his cheek. “It was good to see you both.”

“You, too,” Aziraphale says. He’s surprised by the earnestness of his own words. 

Elena whines as Newt begins extricating her from Crowley’s legs. “Don’t wanna! I love Anty!”

“Ah, go on, little viper,” Crowley says. He pats her head. “Next time you come visit, I’ll show you how to plant flowers. Yeah?”

_Next time._ Aziraphale keeps his face stiffly composed, unsure of how he feels about that promise. Forcing a smile, he adds, “There, there, little Elena. Don’t fret, your Auntie will always… always be here.”

Elena turns her blue gaze on him, and the acuity in that look is like a chill wind. Aziraphale knows that faraway stare, the silky, insubstantial brush of sensation. He has watched psychics work their craft for millennia. 

“Zirfal on fire,” she declares. She cocks her head, perplexed. Aziraphale is cold all over.

“Say bye-bye, now,” Anathema says, reaching out a hand. Elena takes the proffered hand and waves madly at the pair. 

“Bye-bye!” she cries. Crowley, smile gone stiff, raises a hand in farewell. Aziraphale does not move.

Once that Land Rover has disappeared down the road, Crowley rounds on him. “Angel—”

“I’m going to check the wards,” Aziraphale interjects. “They—they always experience a bit of a blow when we let humans through. Best to reinforce them.”

“But—but it’s almost nightfall.”

“I won’t be long.” Aziraphale pushes down the fear rising inside him. He will check the wards. Once he checks the wards, they will be safe. He will check the wards and they will be safe and he won’t have to worry over whether a child is prophesying his burning. With two blazes in his past and a war stretching into the boundless unknown of his future, it seems that fire burns on all sides. He walks back to the kitchen door, touches the whorl in the wood. _Keep us safe._

Crowley’s voice rises in strident protest. “Aziraphale—”

“Back soon, love.” A touch to the garden post, _Keep us safe, _and he’s gone before Crowley can reply.

-

Some months later, Crowley invites Aziraphale on a picnic.

“A _picnic?”_Aziraphale repeats, half-laughing. “With me?”

“No, I’m asking the other angel getting apple juice all over the bed if he wants to go on a picnic,” Crowley grouses. “Of course with you, you knob.”

“Well, isn’t that an incentive,” Aziraphale mutters. Crowley, lying beside him, makes a halfhearted swipe for his apple. He lifts it out of reach with a disapproving tut. “Honestly, Crowley. I thought you were all about tempting innocents into eating apples, not taking them away.”

“Right,” Crowley huffs. “Because you’re an innocent.”

“Innocence is a state of mind,” Aziraphale says in mock defense.

Crowley laughs, half-turning to press his face into Aziraphale’s thigh. His hand quests blindly over the angel’s lap, fingers deft and devilish as they dip beneath the blankets. Aziraphale pulls in a sharp breath as they close around the bulge of his cock, coaxing him to hardness in moments. Dropping the apple core on the bed – ignoring Crowley’s exclamation of dismay – he pushes aside the covers and straddles him, pinning him down. 

“You’re a wicked creature,” he says in mock reproach.

Crowley grins. “This is your innocent state of mind, I take it?”

“Of course,” Aziraphale says, imperious, and leans in to crush his lips down against Crowley’s. Crowley sighs into it, arms curling around Aziraphale, drawing him down to bring their bodies flush together. They are eager, impatient, and in a handful of minutes they are rutting fully-clothed, heavy breaths matched to the rhythm of rolling hips and arching backs. 

Aziraphale moves away after a hazy time, hands propped on the mattress. He looks down at Crowley, and though all his talk of innocence may be a charade, there is no denying the sharp stab under his ribs at the sight of him. Crowley’s chest heaves with the breath he doesn’t need, a delicate flush creeping up his neck to cover his face. He slits open his eyes to dart an incredulous, unfocused glance at Aziraphale.

“Why’d you…” He trails off with a huff. “If you think to leave me like this…”

“Never,” Aziraphale promises. His fingers skim over Crowley’s shirt, melting away the fibers to puddle, re-knitted, in a far corner of the room. He leans down and laves his tongue over a nipple, teasing until it stands pert and flushed. Raising his head, he says, “A state of mind, remember?”

“Wh… what?”

“I love you, Crowley,” Aziraphale announces, and delights in the way Crowley shivers beneath him. It’s been years since the garden, since they first said the words. They are more accustomed to expressing their feelings with action, and Crowley has yet to stop reacting to sweet words. Each endearment jolts him like the touch of a live wire. 

Aziraphale lays a kiss on the center of Crowley’s chest before moving to the other nipple. “I adore you,” he says, and dips his head to lick and suck and nip. Crowley moans softly, spine bowing. Laying firm hands on his waist, pinning him down with the gentle force he knows Crowley adores, Aziraphale continues. “You are the loveliest creature on Earth, you know. The way you blush when I have you like this – more beautiful than the ripe apples in Eden.” He lifts his head, admiring his work, and cranes forward to kiss Crowley’s mouth, to share the taste of the apple he’d been savoring. “So, _so _beautiful.”

“Angel,” Crowley groans. “Angel, _angel…”_

“I love you so much,” Aziraphale says. His hands move down to Crowley’s hips, pushing down his pants to free his cock. Crowley shimmies, kicks the clothing aside, and Aziraphale wraps a hand around his straining prick, thumb flicking over the head to tease the exposed slit. Crowley drops his head with a gasp at the first squeeze, the first rough stroke. “Angel,” he whines. “The nightstand, or, or you can just—”

Aziraphale slicks his fingers with a thought and Crowley _groans. _“You are so gorgeous, my darling. I can’t believe I get you have you like this. That I get to make you feel this way. Is it good, love? Do I make you feel good?”

“Yes,” Crowley grunts. “God, yes, _hah, _keep going…”

Aziraphale suppresses a wicked grin and lowers his other hand to cradle Crowley’s sac, fingers brushing the tight furl of muscle behind. “Tell me what you want, my love.”

“Your cock,” Crowley says immediately. “Your—_fuck, _your cock, _please_.”

Smiling magnanimously, Aziraphale lowers his head to take the head of Crowley’s cock between his lips. As he bobs his head, lapping bitter salt from the slit, he circles Crowley’s hole with a finger. Crowley sucks in a breath, hands fisted in the bedclothes at the gentle, insistent intrusion. Aziraphale hums, taking his cock deeper, and adds a second finger at Crowley’s broken plea. 

“Aziraphale… More, please, _please…”_

Aziraphale lifts his head from Crowley’s flushed cock. “I love you more than anything. Beloved, darling, _beautiful._” He crooks his fingers, brushes the place inside that makes Crowley gasp. He continues, torturously slow, adding a third finger when Crowley begins to shake and curse between every hitched breath. “I love you.” He lowers his head, still stroking, and licks at the skin stretched around his fingers. 

“Azir… _Aziraphale…”_

“I love you.” The words are a mantra, blending into inscrutability as he repeats them again, again, again. He rises on his knees, slicks his hand over his cock, and spreads Crowley’s cheeks. Crowley’s knuckles whiten in the bedclothes as he slowly, _slowly _pushes inside.

_“Fuck, _you feel so fucking good,” Crowley groans.

“I love making you feel good,” Aziraphale says, burying his cock deeper. “I love how you make me feel, I love _you…”_

His thrusts grow faster, stronger, each surge of his hips meeting Crowley’s with a slap of flesh on flesh. Crowley sobs and wraps his legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. All the while, Aziraphale echoes his insensible mantra, thrusting home with each repetition. 

“I’m close,” Crowley chokes out. “I’m, _nngh, _Aziraphale, I’m—I’m so—”

“Say it,” Aziraphale says. “Say it, my love.”

“Hah.” Crowley shudders, sucks in a breath. “I love you, too, angel, _so much—”_ And then he’s coming, clenching tight around Aziraphale as come streaks his chest and chin. Aziraphale fucks him through it, greedy for his pleasure now, and it only takes a few more thrusts before he’s coming, filling Crowley up. He collapses against him with a groan.

“Fuck,” Crowley gasps as he pulls out. Aziraphale replaces his cock with his fingers, keeping him full of his come, and the demon chuckles weakly. “Innocence, huh?”

“Innocent words,” Aziraphale amends, leaning in to kiss the crest of his hip bone. 

Crowley laughs, full and unfettered. “Innocent or not, I know which of us is really the wicked one.” Aziraphale removes his fingers and he shivers, semen dribbling out of his hole. “_Hah. _You are a devious bastard, aren’t you.”

“You love it,” Aziraphale murmurs, licking his fingers clean. 

“I do.” Crowley tugs him up for a proper kiss, long and filthy and deep. “I really do.”

-

Later that day, as the autumn sun reaches its zenith, they take the picnic basket and a blanket out to the hilltop bench. 

Aziraphale takes in the scenery as Crowley lays out the blanket. The South Downs are breathtaking at this time of the year, draped in an intricate brocade of gold, russet, and heather. In the mornings, mist slumps over the hills, but now the skies are clear and bright. The fields below are overgrown, left fallow in the hopes they might yield a good harvest in the coming years. Aziraphale remembers Newt and Anathema’s gaunt faces, the weighty basket on Crowley’s arm. He waves the thoughts away.

Crowley comes to his side. “Pretty, isn’t it.”

Aziraphale takes his hand, brushes a kiss to his knuckles. “It truly is.”

“Come on, then,” Crowley says, tugging him toward the blanket. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Aziraphale’s curiosity is piqued. “Oh?”

“You’ll like this.” Crowley motions for him to take a seat. He complies, sitting with legs outstretched, hands on his thighs as he wiggles with a parody of impatience. Crowley kneels beside him and flips open the cover of the picnic basket. “Tra-la!”

Aziraphale peers inside. He had expected the usual abundance of fruits and vegetables – fresh or canned, having become their staple diet after the flour and butter and sugar ran out. Crowley had given up the battle to simply Miracle More; it was too great a risk, Aziraphale insisted. If, somehow, humans slipped past the wards, it would be impossible to explain a pantry full of bread and cheese and biscuits and scones and _oh, Lord, _Aziraphale is famished just thinking about it. Their dwindling wine cellar and Crowley’s perpetually-fertile garden are already risky enough. 

Instead, to Aziraphale’s surprise, the basket is full of food he hasn’t laid eyes on in years. Alongside the fresh grapes Crowley has taken to growing, there is a can of olives, a cabernet, and a pan of oysters stacked in neat rows. There is also a box of chocolates, each sweet wrapped in glistening foil. A loaf of bread, emanating a warm aroma of comfort, and Aziraphale has to stop his reflexive sigh. A tin of moist, dark devil’s food cake. 

“Thought you could have a taste of that,” Crowley quips, following his gaze, “and then a taste of me. See how they compare.”

The joke should be ridiculous, it should invite cheerful mockery, but Aziraphale can’t summon an ounce of humor. He closes the lid. “Why did you do this?”

His cold tone immediately banishes Crowley’s smile. “I… I thought it’d be nice.”

“It—it _is,”_ Aziraphale hazards even as his guts twist into knots, “but it’s too risky, Crowley, it isn’t _safe—”_

“It’s perfectly safe,” Crowley replies. “It’s just you and me here, angel. Who d’you think is going to happen upon us?”

“The humans’ inventions are advancing all the time,” Aziraphale retorts. His heart is kicking into a sprint, the beat thrumming in his ears. “They could break through the wards and—”

“And see two men-shaped beings on a bloody picnic,” Crowley snaps. “They couldn’t prove anything from that. Maybe we know the right people. Maybe we manipulated the rations system. They can’t automatically know we’re an angel and a demon.”

Aziraphale darts his eyes around the clearing, as if a human might appear at the crucial moment to hear Crowley’s damning words. “They don’t need to _know. _They only need to suspect. That’s reason enough for them.”

“Even if they did, it doesn’t mean they’d overcome us,” Crowley counters. “I dealt with those humans in London, I can do it again.” A muscle twitches in his jaw. “I’d never let them hurt you.”

The bald, matter-of-fact tone of his words takes the fight out of Aziraphale. Still nervous, hating himself for _being_ nervous, he opens the basket and lifts out the pan. The oysters are miraculously cool to the touch. 

“I have missed these,” he admits.

“I know.” Crowley scoots closer, offering a cautious smile. “Just this once, angel. Let yourself enjoy this.”

They sit in companionable silence, Aziraphale nibbling at this and that, trying to enjoy the feast, but the knots in his belly have strangled his appetite. The effort to eat what he once would have relished begins to feel heroic, and after a time, he gives up in favor of nursing a glass of wine. If Crowley notices his reticence, he does not let it show. After a time, he sets down his empty glass and stands. He strides to the edge of the hill and surveys the sprawling landscape of the Downs.

“Really lovely,” Crowley muses. Then, much to Aziraphale’s shock, he unfurls his wings. They stretch out, black and immense and unmistakably _inhuman. _He flaps them twice with a sigh of relief, drubbing the air. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale hisses. “Put those away!”

But Crowley only turns to face him, wings haloed crimson in the sunlight. “C’mon, angel. Live a little. Let me see yours, it’s been ages.”

“Absolutely not,” Aziraphale says, rising to his feet. “You—you know I—”

“It couldn’t hurt to bring them out,” Crowley says, even though it could hurt, it could be the _death _of them. “It might even help. If you tried stretching your wing out, got it moving a bit, you could probably fly—”

“I can’t!” Aziraphale’s voice is a whip, lashing away Crowley’s fool optimism. Hands balled into fists, he cries, “You can’t simply _tell me to be better! _It doesn’t work that way!”

“I only wanted to help—”

“Well, don’t. You haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

Crowley looks like he’s been struck. Then, voice gone low, he says, “I do. I saw what they did to you, angel. I can’t stop seeing it. I had nightmares about it, constantly, after we got to the cottage. I still do. Sometimes.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, voice dripping scorn, “you poor thing. That must be so awful for you.”

“I didn’t mean—I’m not making _light _of it,” Crowley says. “I only meant that you’re not alone in this.”

“You say such wonderful things,” Aziraphale says. The bitterness is a poison in him, a potent mixture of shame and fury. “You always know exactly what to say, don’t you? But when I ask you not to do something, you won’t listen.”

“Because what you want isn’t _rational!” _Crowley explodes. “You won’t let us perform proper miracles, won’t let us go outside your wards, won’t let yourself get better! I’m trying to help you, Aziraphale, but I can’t do it alone! You have to meet me halfway.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Aziraphale says coldly. The word _rational_ had hit him like a backhand, and he is still reeling. “If you think there’s something _wrong _with me, I can leave you alone to fly in peace.”

“I never…” Crowley trails off, a hard look coming into his eyes. “You know what? Fine. I haven’t flown in years. Don’t wait up.”

He spreads his wings and, with a powerful beat that throws up the blanket and threatens to tip over the basket, takes to the sky. Aziraphale watches as he climbs past the treetops and above the reach of the wards. The sky is a perfect, cloudless expanse of blue, with nothing to obscure Crowley’s vast, night-cloth wings, the concussive sound as they hammer the air. And all at once, the anger drains out of Aziraphale, swiftly supplanted by pure terror. The humans will see Crowley. They will come with their nets and their knives and snare him out of the sky as easily as they would a fish from the sea, and Crowley will be helpless as they pin him down and cut him apart—

Aziraphale’s wings are out before he can stop himself. The right stretches out, immense and strong, but the left—oh, the left. Agony shoots through him as the wing twitches, tries to extend. Muscle and sinew and bone shriek in protest and the wing falls to his side, snow-white feathers dragging across the blanket. Aziraphale falls to his knees with a cry of anguish.

Crowley is beside him in an instant, voice panicked. “Angel, _Aziraphale, _fuck, I’m so sorry—”

His hands skitter, tentative, over Aziraphale’s back and he curls into himself with a whimper. Crowley draws back as though he’s touched white-hot steel. “Fuck, Aziraphale, just—just hold still, let me…”

Aziraphale bites back a cry and vanishes his wings. As Crowley sets a gentle hand on his shoulder, pouring in power to dull the sharpest edge of pain, he works to get his breathing under control. Crowley’s arms are around him, apologies a frantic white noise in his ears. “Breathe, angel. Just breathe.”

Aziraphale gulps down a breath and raises his head. “We don’t need to breathe.”

“No,” Crowley concedes, helping him to his feet and holding him steady as his vision swims, “but it can’t hurt. In through the nose, out through the mouth.”

Aziraphale obeys, mostly because he can scarcely think past the pain to do anything else. Slowly, the world stops spinning off its axis. He clasps Crowley’s hands and pulls his fragmented thoughts back together. 

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“You—what?” Crowley asks. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I said horrid things to you. I didn’t mean them. I only wanted to hurt you.”

“Well, I wasn’t any better.” Crowley pries one hand free of Aziraphale’s grasp to stroke his brow, thumbing aside a wayward curl. “I convinced myself I was being kind when I was really being selfish.”

“But—but I…”

_“Aziraphale.” _Crowley’s voice is gentle but firm. “It’s not easy for me to admit when I have regrets. I’m a demon, I’m not wired that way. Have mercy and let us move on.”

Aziraphale musters a laugh, though it rings brittle in his own ears. “Yes, my love. Yes.”

“Perfect.” Crowley slides an arm under his, supporting him. “Let’s get you back to the cottage and sort you out.”


	5. an incantation for the end of the world

The next time someone breaches the wards, Aziraphale is seated in his armchair by the fireplace, a cup of tea resting at his elbow and a book in his lap. He memorized the book ages ago – _Wuthering Heights _– but he wanted something vicious and a little sensational today, and nothing encompasses those qualities quite as well as Catherine and Heathcliff. He stills in the act of turning a page, eyes flying wide as the concentric circles in his mind shiver with the intruder’s passage. 

He is on his feet in an instant, book fluttering to the floor. He runs out to the garden with a warning cry on the tip of his tongue and halts, stunned silent. 

Adam Young is leaning against the garden gate and chatting with a tense-looking Crowley. As if this is a totally ordinary day, a totally ordinary thing he does. 

Adam turns at Aziraphale’s approach with an easy smile. He is taller than Aziraphale remembers – a young teen, by his count – standing on the cusp of manhood, the new planes and angles of his face at war with lingering baby-fat. He raises a hand in greeting.

“Hullo, Aziraphale,” he says. Aziraphale sets his teeth. He never gave Adam his name, and a quick glance at Crowley confirms that neither did he. The knowledge of having his life jostled about, upended for its myriad details is disconcerting. 

“Hello, Adam,” he says warily. He glances around the garden, casts his sense out, but he can sense no other intruders beside the Antichrist. “Er, at the risk of sounding terribly rude, is this some kind of social call?”

“Uh-huh,” says Adam. His reply is so frank that Aziraphale is taken aback. “Hope it’s alright. I do it for everyone. And since Newt and Anathema can come here, I thought it’d be okay if I did, too.”

Aziraphale fights an urge to glance at Crowley. He’s grown less edgy about Newt and Anathema’s visits over the years, infrequent as they are – it’s nice to have slivering rations of news from the outside world, nice to visit with other people. Crowley adores taking little Elena out into the garden and showing her all the plants, teaching her their names and letting her help plant seeds, pick fruits. Their son, Morgan, is just learning to walk, but he toddles after Aziraphale everywhere until his chubby legs inevitably betray him. 

Aziraphale loves those visits, treasures them more than he ever thought he could. But if the Pulsifer-Device family have been telling tales of their visits to the cottage, he may have to shut them out like he has the rest of the world.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Adam says nonchalantly. “They didn’t tell me. I kinda just knew.”

Aziraphale frowns, nettled both by the unwarranted peek into his thoughts and the fact that the Antichrist can simply _know_ sensitive information on a whim. “I see.”

“This is a nice place. Almost as nice as Tadfield. Pretty remote, but that’s probably a good thing for you.”

“Ah, yes,” Aziraphale fumbles, darting a glance at Crowley, who looks just as perplexed as he feels. “It’s quite… quite nice.”

Adam nods, looking abstractedly around the garden and surrounding trees. Aziraphale can feel him prodding at each ward in turn, more out of idle curiosity than a desire to see them fall. He wonders, unsettled, if Tadfield has been purposefully kept safe. The quaint English village had been severed from the modern world, in a way, since Adam’s birth: roads re-routed, technological trends ignored in favor of wooden swords and treehouses. Has Tadfield remained so since the war began? Is it an island of tranquility, preserved as the world burns down around it?

“Why don’t you come in?” Crowley blurts out. He pointedly avoids Aziraphale’s eyes, fingers drumming nervously on the garden gate. “Have a cuppa and a chat. Couldn’t hurt.”

Adam beams. “That’d be brilliant.”

And so, Aziraphale and Crowley have the Antichrist over for tea. 

“Dreafully sorry about the lack of biscuits,” Aziraphale says, setting down the plate. “I trust these will do.”

Adam grins as if sharing a private joke with himself and picks an apple slice off the plate. “I like apples.” A divot forms on his brow. “But why no biscuits? Can’t you just…?”

“No,” Aziraphale says, too quickly. Adam raises an incredulous brow and, mollified, he explains, “We try to avoid… excesses.”

“Keeping a low profile,” Crowley adds, sauntering over to pour the tea.

Aziraphale smiles stiffly. “You understand.”

Adam shrugs, a gesture so noncommittal it could mean anything_. _He pops an apple slice into his mouth and chews contemplatively. “S’pose so. Guess I never thought of it like that.”

Aziraphale shifts in his seat, casting about for something – _anything – _to preoccupy the boy. After spending eleven years in the belief he had been helping to raise the Antichrist, he had thought himself inured to the spine-creeping fear of interaction with a being so powerful he could erase Aziraphale from the past, present, and future with a thought. Evidently, he had been wrong. 

He settles for more chatter. “So, ah, tell us about yourself. Still in Tadfield, are you?”

“Yeah. Mum and Dad keep talking about moving, but so far we don’t really have any reason to. Tadfield’s the safest place in the country. Prob’ly in the _world.”_

“I see.”

“And your friends?” Crowley asks. He takes a seat and props his elbows on the table, the picture of ease, but something in the angle of his smile sets Aziraphale on edge. “How are they?”

“They’re alright. Wensleydale wants to study to be an accountant, but the uni he was going to attend got closed down. He’s looking for another one, but…” For the briefest moment, a shadow of sorrow crosses Adam’s face. Then it is gone, banished in favor of a shrug. “Well, none of them are good enough for him, honestly. And Brian’s pretty keen on going wherever he goes. Pepper talks about joining the Freedom Fighters, but it drives her mum mad to hear that.” He makes the last remark with a half-laugh, as though it is a fancy to be taken lightly.

Aziraphale feels anything but light. Every atom of his body springs to attention, shivering with cold dread. “I should hope so.”

Adam only shrugs, utterly indifferent. “Yeah, they’re not so great. I think Pepper knows that, but she just hates sitting around feeling like she can’t do anything. That’s all.”

“And your parents?” Crowley asks, doggedly grasping for the boy’s focus. “Mr. and Mrs. Young doing well?”

“They’re fine. Not going anywhere. Like I said, Tadfield’s perfectly safe.”

“Because you’re keeping it that way.”

Aziraphale flicks a worried glance at Crowley, but his gaze is fixed on Adam, unblinking and accusing. Adam stares back at him. Then, appearing to dismiss him, he picks up another apple slice from the plate and pops it into his mouth. 

After chewing contemplatively, Adam says, “S’pose I want it to be safe, so maybe I am. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“You should,” Crowley says.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale hisses.

At last Crowley looks at him, eyes defiant. “What? I’m only saying.”

“It’s alright.” Adam picks up another apple slice and takes a crunching bite. “I’m not bothered.”

Crowley turns his serpentine gaze on the boy. His tone slips from defensive to smooth, coaxing, a sibilance Aziraphale knows so well. “I’m right, though, aren’t I? You’re keeping Tadfield safe with your power. That’s perfectly understandable, but… well, what I _can’t _understand is why you wouldn’t do more.”

Aziraphale reaches for his hand on the tabletop. “Crowley—”

Crowley pulls his hand just out of reach, words unfaltering. “Because I know you can. You can do more. You’ve got the power to change the world, Adam. You could end this war with a single thought.”

Adam pauses with his hand outstretched toward the plate. A beat passes in silence before he drops his hands down to his lap, head bent. He suddenly looks very young, an eleven-year-old boy with the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I didn’t want to mess people about, when I was a kid.”

“I understand that,” Crowley says, conciliatory. “But you’re older, now. You know more about the world, you know it isn’t always black and white – and you know sometimes it is.” A pause, exquisitely-timed. “Like now. If you ended the war now – Hell, if you made it so it never happened…”

Time distorts in that pause, as perfectly-played as an expert bard strumming a lyre: spellbinding, a gap that makes the audience lean forward, eager for the next note to shatter the ringing hush. Aziraphale is suddenly aware of his heartbeat, slow and steady in his chest despite the icy wash of dismay threatening to drown it. Crowley wants Adam to alter the course of events, make it so the war never happened. If he so wished, Adam could fold the universe in on itself like a scrap of paper, spear a hole through _now _to _then_and re-route time. 

He could do it. Aziraphale knows he could. But if that is what Crowley truly wants – what he gets – then he and Aziraphale will have never found their way to one another. 

_Is that what you want? _he thinks. _Could you have never had this? Had us?_

“…Imagine how many lives you could save,” Crowley continues. Scarcely three seconds must have passed in the pause between words. “All the _good_ you could do.”

Adam looks up, brow knitted. “I… I know what you’re doing, you know. And s’not evil, even if you pretend to yourself it is. Tempting me.” Crowley blinks, but otherwise gives no indication of his surprise. “But I can’t do that. I can’t change everyone’s minds _for _them, that’s the whole point.”

Crowley leans forward. To the untrained ear, his voice sounds as soft and coaxing as ever, but Aziraphale catches the wheedling note in his words. “Could it hurt, just this once? This one, all-important time? You could prevent the world from ending. Back then, before, you did it. You stopped Heaven and Hell from bringing about Armageddon.”

Adam shakes his head, jaw set. “That’s just it, isn’t it? I had to stop it because people didn’t have a choice. They didn’t want the world to end. Your lot did. I wanted to give people a _choice_to keep the world goin’, even, even if it meant the polar ice caps might melt or the whales might die. It’s our mess, now, because we chose it. And I hate it, but I can’t change it. Wouldn’t be fair.”

_“Fair!”_

The word is an explosion in Crowley’s mouth, a cataclysm of outrage. Aziraphale stiffens, knuckles white around the handle of his teacup. “Crowley.”

But Crowley is beyond listening. He slams his fist down on the table, and such is the force of his rage that a hairline crack splinters through the wood. Aziraphale thinks of Gabriel striking the table, years ago, furious when he refused to fight. “You come to our home and talk about _fair! _D’you have any idea how long we’ve been here? Years!” He gestures to the kitchen window, to the garden, to the world beyond. “Meanwhile, the world is tearing itself to bits out there, and you sit here drinking tea and talking about what’s fair.”

Aziraphale stands, pushing back his chair. “Crowley, _don’t.”_

“No, angel. He’s a big, grown man now, isn’t he?” Crowley demands. He glares at Adam. “Aren’t you? Well, if that’s how it is, you’ve got to grow up and take responsibility. End the war! You could do it! Fair doesn’t exist anymore, don’t you see? It’s all about who’s got more power and more bodies to throw at the other side.”

Adam bites his lip. He looks haggard, exhausted beyond his years, but the glint in his eyes is all steel and strength. “My mind’s made up. I’m not using my power.”

“You’re being a spoiled little _child!” _Crowley rages.“How can you sit by and do nothing when the world is ending? When you could stop it? What, do you want your little friends to die?”

Aziraphale rounds the side of the table and reaches out a shaking hand for Crowley’s shoulder. “Crowley, please, stop—”

“You want Pepper to join the Freedom Fighters, is that it?” Crowley demands, his tone dripping scorn. “Get skewered by some angel’s blade? You want Wensleydale and Brian to be blown to bits in whatever hovel still passes for a university?” His voice rises, pitching toward hysteria. “And what about your parents? How long are you going to keep them trapped in Tadfield? Because you know the moment your daft old dad and sweet mum set foot outside your protection, the war will eat them up. It’ll swallow them whole and it won’t even spit out a speck for you to remember them by. They’ll all die, and that will be on you. Because you were so set on being _fair.”_

A stifling hush permeates the room. Aziraphale draws his hand back, suddenly unsure. He had thought—had hoped this would be enough. That if he kept them safe, they could stay at the cottage until… until. 

Aziraphale grips the edge of the table. He lowers himself back into his seat, turns his hands over. The sliver of gold on his palm winks in the afternoon light.

Adam is the one to break the hush. “You really don’t get it, do you? You can’t keep the world the same forever. ‘Specially not since your lot spent thousands and thousands of years doing whatever you wanted.” He pushes back his chair and stands. “People are angry, yeah, but they’re scared, too. They’re scared because one day, they realized their lives were being played with by angels and demons, and they felt like they had no control. That’s why they’re trying to get rid of you. Because for all of history, angels and demons have watched awful things happen and haven’t made it _better.”_

Crowley splutters, face red with fury. “But—”

“I know it’s not right, but at least I can try to understand it.” Adam shoves his hands into his pockets. “I should go. Sorry for imposing.” He walks to the door and pauses on the threshold. Frowning, he reaches up to touch the whorl on the doorframe. Aziraphale makes an involuntary noise of protest and Adam drops his hand, mouth twisting. “Y’know, you’re so afraid of me. Every second I’m around you, I can feel it. But what part are you afraid of?” He looks at Aziraphale and Crowley, eyes alight with the embers of a dying world. “The human or the Antichrist? ‘Cause I’m not just one or the other. I’m both of those things.”

He leaves. Long after he’s gone, the silence remains.

-

Later, long after dusk gives way to night, Aziraphale retreats to the bedroom alone. A part of him wants to resist sleep, stay up with one of the books in the crate – he’s memorized them all, but that doesn’t matter. He needs time alone to process Crowley’s botched temptation and what it implies. But when he tries to sink into _A Tale of Two Cities, _he cannot absorb a single word. Exhaustion seeps into his bones and weighs down his eyelids, makes it impossible to focus. He gives up, sets the book aside, and turns off the light. He drags the covers over his head.

Insight strikes as he sinks into sleep, and it’s like leafing through Agnes Nutter’s book: a nonsensical scrawl finally making sense after the prediction has come to pass. Perhaps this was the Almighty’s plan all along. Perhaps Adam Young _was_meant to end the world, only not in the way Heaven and Hell had anticipated. 

Perhaps the Antichrist would usher in Armageddon – not by leading Four Horsemen and sparking a war, but by doing nothing. By watching, with utter conviction, as the war burns the world to an empty husk.

-

Some time later – minutes or hours, he has no idea – the mattress dips as Crowley climbs into bed and snugs himself up close behind Aziraphale, arms curling around his middle. His lips are soft on Aziraphale’s nape, pressing words into the knobs of his spine.

“You must understand,” he whispers, so quietly. “You must understand. You must.” It’s an incantation, a prayer. “I couldn’t _not _try. Please, angel. You must understand.”

Aziraphale lays motionless, feigning sleep. Crowley knows what he’s done.

“Please try to understand.” Crowley presses a kiss to the place where his hair curls at his nape. _I love you, _Aziraphale doesn’t hear, but he doesn’t have to.

-

He wakes in the semi-dark to Crowley’s ragged breaths in his ear and the insistent jut of his cock at the small of his back. Feeling him wake, Crowley runs a careful hand over his hip. “Can I…”

Aziraphale turns in response. Wordlessly, he pushes Crowley so he lies on his back, hands thrown over his head to grip the pillow. His prick tents the soft cotton of his pants. Aziraphale kneels over him and slowly, slowly touches him. There is a wet spot where he’s been leaking. He must have been in this state for such a time, needing but unsure of his welcome. Crowley groans at the first featherlight touch and tries to arch into it, but Aziraphale settles a hand on his chest, pushes him down. He vanishes their clothing and pushes aside the duvet. In a scant few moments, he is astride Crowley, slick and open and sinking slowly down on his cock with a barely-audible grunt.

Crowley’s eyes fly wide at the suddenness of it. “Azir—” He breaks off with a groan, hands flying up to grasp his hips. Aziraphale closes his eyes, adjusting to the swift succession of _open-empty-full, so full, _and begins to slowly move. Each rock of his hips makes Crowley gasp, hiss, curse, and soon he is uttering such a worshipful litany that Aziraphale’s silence goes unheard. 

There is something wrong in this, Aziraphale knows. Never before has he felt so subdued in their lovemaking. When he’s touching Crowley, he is always speaking to him, murmuring all the praises and adoration he never dared express before. Once, he had thought he would never make up for six-thousand years of friendship and love unremarked, no matter how much he said. But he had been determined to _try._

Now, the words wither unspoken inside him. He snaps his hips, taking Crowley deeper, chasing the demon’s cries as they soar above the slap of flesh on flesh. He can feel Crowley’s body grow taut as he nears his peak. Fingers bite bruises into his thighs. Crowley digs his heels into the mattress and thrusts up with a sob, spilling inside him, hot and trembling and filling him full.

“Fuck,” Crowley gasps. He opens his eyes, stares, and closes them again at the sight of Aziraphale climbing off with come dripping between his cheeks. _“Fuck, _you’re going to discorporate me.”

Aziraphale can think of nothing to say, so he says nothing. He looks down at Crowley and feels both sated and sad.

“You…” Crowley cracks open an eye. “You didn’t… You weren’t…”

“I’m fine.” Aziraphale settles beside him, vanishing the mess. “Sleep, my love.”

“But…”

“I’m _fine. _Really. Only I’m very tired and would like to sleep.”

“Oh,” Crowley says, the sound small in the dark. “I… okay.”

He is quiet after that, but he stays stiff as a board beside Aziraphale, far from sleep. His anxiety bleeds from skin to skin into Aziraphale, who eventually shifts away under the pretext of rolling in his slumber. He doesn’t think Crowley falls for it, but Crowley doesn’t raise a protest, and that is very nearly the same thing. A sense of unease settles over them, an oppressive thundercloud, but in time Aziraphale is able to find sleep.

And, right before he slips under, he also finds his unspoken words.

_Isn’t this enough? Aren’t we enough?_

_Aren’t I—_

-

Years pass. Sometimes they are a rushing torrent, moments skimming past Aziraphale’s grasping fingers before he can catch them, preserve them. Sometimes – when Crowley is feeling stifled and Aziraphale can’t stop going out to check the wards – time clings like an oily residue, too stubborn to be scrubbed away. But, inevitably, time passes. 

Newt and Anathema leave Dorking for the coastal town of Seaford, bringing them much closer to the cottage. They visit more and more, slowly wearing away at Aziraphale’s reservations until he cannot help but enjoy their company. Newt is an easy, comforting presence, stolidly searching for cheer in spite of the bleak news he brings from the outside world. Anathema takes to bringing herbs from their own little garden, basil and rosemary and thyme to trade for Crowley’s miraculous profusion of vegetables. 

Elena becomes Crowley’s little shadow, always asking questions, always trading barbed quips and easy grins. Crowley adores her, no matter how much he claims to detest her calling him “Auntie.” Her little brother, Morgan, follows Aziraphale with rapt attention, forever nosing after the sweets Crowley occasionally miracles into his pockets. Aziraphale chides Crowley for it every time, but he can’t find it in him to refuse Morgan when he reaches into his pockets and finds the foil-wrapped candies. 

It helps, Aziraphale thinks, that Morgan has not a hint of his prophetess ancestor’s power. For the son of a witch, Morgan is shockingly normal. Elena, on the other hand, brims with such concentrated psychic power that he finds it difficult to be around her. He has not forgotten the prophecy she made about him years ago – how she saw him aflame. He cannot guess whether she saw something in the past or the future, and he is too afraid to ask. After the hellfire, after the bookshop, surely there is nothing left of him to burn. 

Newt and Anathema’s news becomes slowly more dire as the years pass. London has grown inhabitable, left only to angels, demons, and Freedom Fighters to pick over the carcass of a once-great city. Other cities around the world are the same: New York, Los Angeles, Beijing, Mumbai, Delhi, Tokyo. All razed by war, all hemorrhaging civilians to flee to the remote countryside. Anathema’s family has long-since abandoned their Malibu home, but with international communication so limited, she knows little of their fates. Aziraphale listens to their ill tidings with sympathy, but he cannot quash the whisper in his mind, faint but undeniable: _They deserve it. All the humans deserve it._

He hates himself for thinking that way. Really, truly hates himself.


	6. her own tender love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the notes at the end of the chapter if you don't like nasty surprises (sorry in advance).

One day, leaning against the garden gate and chatting with Newt, Aziraphale turns and sees Elena drop to her hands and knees in the freshly-turned soil.

“Mum,” she manages, and then falls face-first into a fit of convulsions.

Newt is moving before Aziraphale can comprehend what is happening. He pushes the garden gate open and runs to his daughter’s side, shouting for Anathema. Aziraphale stumbles after him, locking eyes with Crowley as he races over from the other side of the garden. They hover uselessly as Newt turns Elena onto her back, brushing dirt and hair from her face as she twitches and jerks. Her face is a rictus of horror, teeth clenched, eyes wide. 

“What’s happening?” Crowley demands. Aziraphale reaches out and takes his hand, gripping tightly.

“It’s—she has fits,” Newt explains, his calm tone belied by the fear in his eyes. “It’s been happening more and more. Anathema—”

Anathema has raced through the garden gate and dropped to her knees beside the prone form of her daughter. Jaw set, she places her hands on either side of Elena’s face and closes her eyes. Aziraphale takes a step forward, tempted to perform a healing miracle, but Anathema says, tone sharp, “Don’t. If you touch her, it will suck you in, too.”

Aziraphale retreats, a shiver crawling up his spine. As Anathema holds her daughter, fierce concentration knitted into her brow, he squeezes Crowley’s hand in silent sympathy. Crowley adores Elena, dotes on her with infinite amusement and patience. The tension in his fingers betrays his fear as they grip Aziraphale’s to the point of pain. 

After several minutes, quiet but for the nonsensical trill of birdsong in the nearby trees, Anathema draws away shakily. Newt runs to her side and helps gather back her hair while she pitches sideways to retch into the dirt. Aziraphale and Crowley watch, helpless, as her heaving subsides. Eyes glassy, face pale, Anathema wipes a hand over her mouth and murmurs her thanks to Newt, who only smiles gently. Beside them, Elena stirs with a little groan. 

Crowley is by her side at once. Kneeling in the dirt, he places a hand on her back while she sits up. “All right, little viper?”

“Fine,” she mumbles, mustering a heroic effort to smile. “Don’t worry, Auntie. It happens.”

“’Don’t worry?’” Crowley parrots with a baleful laugh. He wipes a smudge of dirt off her nose. “Of course. How silly of me.”

Aziraphale glances toward the garden gate. Morgan is crouched beside the gate post, half-hidden behind a spray of roses. He hasn’t made a sound. 

“Come here, dear boy,” Aziraphale beckons. “It’s—it’s quite all right. Everything is going to be tip-top, don’t you worry.”

Morgan meets Aziraphale’s gaze, and the wariness Aziraphale finds there gives him pause. Before he can begin to understand it, the boy stands, turns, and stalks back toward the cottage.

Long after they’ve ushered Elena inside, Crowley offering her his arm while Newt supports Anathema’s weaving steps, Aziraphale cannot shake the feel of Morgan’s stare. It clings to him, the stench of smoke and ash in his nostrils, a crust of dried blood on his palm. 

Inside, Anathema pulls a stool up to the sofa where Elena reclines, having been bullied to lie down despite her protestations. From the kitchen, Aziraphale watches Anathema comb her fingers through her daughter’s hair. The low notes of her humming float to him through wisps of steam as he pours the tea. They ran out of tea bags ages ago; now, they drink Crowley’s bastardized take on chamomile, concocted from his own garden-grown flowers and mint. It’s bitter without a drop of honey, but Aziraphale has grown used to that. 

“Can I borrow a dishcloth?” Newt asks, walking into the kitchen.

“Certainly.” Aziraphale gestures to a drawer by the sink. As Newt wets the cloth and rings it out, Aziraphale affects a tone of composure and adds, “Have you seen young Morgan?”

“Oh, he’s about,” Newt says, distractedly. “He gets a bit edgy when this happens. It scares him, seeing Elena like that.”

“That happens often, then? Those fits?”

“More and more,” Newt says sadly. Bracing the heels of his hands on the counter, he shakes his head. “Terrified me, the first time. Anathema, too, but she had a better idea of what was happening, so. Thank God for her.”

Aziraphale recalls Elena’s prophecy, so long ago now. _Zirfal on fire. _“So, they’re visions. Prophecies.”

“Yeah.” Newt’s mouth twists as if he’s tasted something bitter. He’s no longer the naïve, fresh-faced boy Aziraphale first saw on the tarmac of Tadfield Air Base. He’s a man who came into fatherhood in the midst of a war, a man powerless to protect his child from the threat that runs in her very blood. “Anathema says Elena’s even closer to Agnes than she is. It’s… it’s helped, once or twice. Wish it wouldn’t.”

“It seems wrong that a child should have to carry that burden.”

“Yeah. But that’s their lot, isn’t it. They’re inheriting the war we started.” Newt twists the dishcloth into a taut rope. “I have to keep telling myself they’re stronger than I think. Like Adam, for example.”

Aziraphale startles. “Adam Young?”

“Yeah.” Newt cocks an eyebrow at his quizzical expression. “You hadn’t heard?”

“No.” Aziraphale’s mind whirls. How long ago was it, that Adam visited? Years and years, certainly, though he can’t pin down how _many. _“What about Adam?”

“Cor. I forget how cut off from everything you are.” Newt shrugs, unperturbed by his scowl. “Adam’s become quite the advocate. He was at the ground floor of a pro-peace group. They’re called The Them.”

Aziraphale frowns. “Why on earth…?”

“I guess that was his gang’s claim to fame as kids,” Newt explains. “You’ve got to hand it to him. At least he’s still got a sense of humor. He’s working to affect change within the government, calling for the Prime Minister to step down, for the Freedom Fighters to be more strictly-regulated. That sort of thing. He’s really started gaining momentum.”

“My word.” Aziraphale’s mind chafes to reconcile the weedy, half-grown boy who came to visit the cottage so long ago with the picture Newt is painting. “That is certainly… something.”

“Angel,” Crowley calls from the living room, “how’s that tea coming along? I’m dying for a cuppa.”

“You barely drink tea, my dear,” Aziraphale remarks as he lifts the tray and walks in with Newt trailing behind. “How are you feeling, Elena? Your color’s coming back.”

“I’m—I’m _fine,_” Elena says, all forced cheer, but she won’t look at him. Crowley takes a cup from the tray, which she accepts with muttered thanks. She stares into the murky steam. “Really, you’re all… you’re all overreacting.”

Aziraphale and Crowley exchange a glance. They’ve watched Elena grow up, disjointed as it may have been – they know when she’s evading a thorny subject, and they know how to extract the truth with exquisite care. Crowley leans over her, one elbow propped on the back of the sofa.

“Come on, little viper,” he coaxes. “You know you’re a rubbish liar.”

Elena gives a strained half-laugh and glances at Anathema, who only shrugs. “It was your prophecy. You can tell or not tell if you like, _mi amor_.” Her expression is resolutely neutral, but Aziraphale catches the darting-swift flicker of her eyes as they move to him and drop away. 

Elena mumbles something unintelligible. Crowley cocks an eyebrow. “You saw _what?”_

At last, she looks at Aziraphale. Her lower lip trembles and she blinks hard, clearly fighting tears. “It was a battle.”

For the space of a heartbeat, Crowley goes very still. Then, in a tone laden with false composure – a tone that fools no-one – he says, “And?”

Elena scrubs a hand over her eyes. “And—and there were angels, mostly. Some demons, but they were further back. The angels were big, and _so bright, _and they all had swords.” Her eyes flick away from Aziraphale, and he wonders what she is thinking: if she can’t fathom him as a warrior, or if her witch’s blood has shown her precisely that. “They were battling with a group of Freedom Fighters. I didn’t recognize the city; it was all happening very quickly. Bu-but… the humans had. They had one of the angels.”

The hairs rise on Aziraphale’s nape. “Oh.”

“Uh-huh.” Elena’s fingers are restless in her lap, picking nonexistent lint from her trousers. “They… th-they’d caught it. I don’t know if it was male or female, it was hard to tell. It had dark skin and golden markings on its face.”

Aziraphale and Crowley exchange a look. “Uriel.”

“They’d cut off its hand and taken its sword,” Elena says, her voice flattening and picking up speed. “They… they were taking their time. It was horrible. And then another angel came, it looked female, and it tried to save th-the other one, but they set it on fire, and it burned _so quickly. _Like dry paper.It was trying to crawl toward the other one by the end, even though the other one was dead, even though it was dying, too.” Her hands come up to cover her nose, as if warding off the stink of char. Tears spill down her cheeks. “It was so fast. And so horrible.” 

Anathema murmurs and croons to her as she weeps. Aziraphale turns, mind spinning, intent on leaving them to their shared horror while he tends to his own. Crowley lays a hand on his shoulder before he can take a single step.

“Angel?” he asks. “You okay?”

“I will be.” Aziraphale hears his own voice as if from a vast distance. Sandalphon, dead. Uriel, dead. Michael, dead. Aziraphale may have never liked the Archangels, but they _had_ been kin. Now they’re gone, and only Gabriel remains. It’s a hard backhand of reality: that Heaven’s greatest bulwark against humanity is crumbling, doomed to fall. 

A flicker of movement catches Aziraphale’s attention as he walks aimlessly down the corridor. He glances up to see Morgan huddled on the stairs, knees drawn to his chest. 

“Morgan,” Aziraphale says, and the child tenses. “Dear boy, are you all right?”

Morgan buries his face in his arms by way of reply. Aziraphale smiles despite himself, affection squeezing around his heart. With a put-upon huff, he climbs the stairs. “Budge over, now.”

Morgan obeys with a sullen grumble, but Aziraphale is undeterred. The boy dips into black moods from time to time. Anathema says he’s _sensitive._ He is particular about things being just so and loathes any disruption to his perception of normal. Aziraphale can sympathize. Just as Crowley’s capricious nature lends to an affection for Elena, so does Aziraphale’s stolid dislike for change endear him to Morgan. 

“Tell me what’s troubling you,” Aziraphale says without preamble. 

“Nothing.”

“Come now, Morgan. You know you can tell me anything.”

The boy raises his head with a ferocious look. “Can I?”

The vehemence in his tone catches Aziraphale off-guard. “Of course you can. How long have you known me?”

Morgan’s lower lip juts out. “My teachers say we can never trust angels or demons. Tom says the same.”

“What—who is Tom?”

“My best mate. His dad’s a Freedom Fighter.” 

The bald, defiant pride in his tone sets Aziraphale on edge. For the briefest instant, he is under the net again, thrashing and screaming as the blade saws into his wing. 

He shoves the memory down, curling his left hand into a fist. “Well—well, that’s perfectly understandable. You must respect your teachers and love your friends, after all. But, Morgan, you know Crowley and I are different, yes? We would never hurt you. We consider you family.”

The moment the words are out of his mouth, Aziraphale realizes how painfully _true _they are. He had spoken thoughtlessly, determined to soothe the boy’s fears, but he meant every word with a conviction that sheared through his usual precautions. Newt, Anathema, Elena, and Morgan are not like other humans. They’re _good_ – and, in spite of himself, Aziraphale loves them. Loves them terribly. If it came down to it, he would fight for them. 

The understanding warms his heart even as it threatens to choke him with fear. Aziraphale forces a smile, though he doesn’t feel it reach his eyes. “Go on, then. Tell me what’s troubling you.”

Morgan is silent for a long moment. Then, glaring past the threat of tears, he shoves the words out in a rush: “I think Mum doesn’t love me as much as she loves Lena ‘cause Lena’s a proper psychic and I’m just a boring old _nothing.”_

For the briefest moment, Aziraphale has to fight a chuckle. It wouldn’t do, laughing at Morgan – that would only sour his mood further, convince him that he’s right. Aziraphale forgets, sometimes, how narrow humans’ perceptions can be. The world may be ending, but Morgan is worried his mother doesn’t love him as much as his sister. It is such a limited, _human _perspective, by turns fascinating and amusing. 

Aziraphale bites the inside of his cheek and reaches into his pocket. For the first time, what he vows to himself will be the _only time, _he miracles a sweet into existence. He offers it to Morgan, and his smile is daring and real and full. “You have nothing to worry about, dear boy. Your parents both love you just as much as your sister. Now, would you like a—”

He breaks off as Morgan snatches the sweet from his open palm, though he has the grace to look guilty after the fact. As the boy tears off the wrapper and scarfs down the candy, Aziraphale’s resolve not to laugh crumbles. 

“What?” Morgan demands, voice garbled.

“Nothing, dear boy,” Aziraphale says, and it should be odd, it should be utterly _wrong _that he’s laughing now, with Elena weeping in the next room and Michael and Uriel dead and the world ending just outside the wards. But knowing all that does nothing to smother the giggles boiling up in his chest. “I’m quite fond of you, that’s all.”

Morgan scowls. “You’re so _weird,_ Uncle Aziraphale.”

“I am. I fear there’s something terribly wrong with me.”

Morgan rolls his eyes, but the tears no longer threaten and his asperity is mostly a front. “Least we can agree on _that.”_

“Come along, then. Let’s see if your Auntie has left any tea for us.”

-

Later that night, long after Newt and Anathema and the children have trundled off in the Land Rover, Crowley lies behind Aziraphale, arms curved like twining vines around him. His breath is warm and steady on his nape, reassuring – but some unseen strain won’t let him settle. After a long, sleepless silence, Aziraphale turns to face Crowley. The demon stares back at him. 

“You’re safe, angel,” he says at last. “You’re safe with me. I won’t let anything happen to you. You know that, yeah?”

Aziraphale looks and looks and looks at him, and thinks his heart may very well break with the love straining at the sturdy scaffolding of tissue and blood, artery and vein. 

He skates a hand over Crowley’s hip, up to the notches of his ribs. He wondered, once, if the Almighty had made the spaces between Crowley’s ribs the perfect size to cradle his fingers. If She had tailored him specifically for Aziraphale to hold. He doesn’t know if he believes the Almighty had anything to do with it, now, but perhaps Crowley did, and that makes it even better. 

“I know,” he murmurs, and leans in, lips seeking._I don’t need Michael or Uriel or Gabriel or Sandalphon. I don’t need anyone else in all of existence._

After several long minutes of kissing, Crowley tugs off his pants, tosses them away, and rolls to sit astride Aziraphale. He begins rocking their hardening pricks together and Aziraphale grips his thighs, matches his pace. A sigh unspools from Crowley. His eyes slip shut and his lips part, showing the whites of his teeth, the pink flicker of his tongue. Aziraphale is greedy for every glimpse of it. His own pleasure coils low in his belly, a slow gathering of tension.

“Crowley,” he says, breath hitching. 

Crowley understands. He shimmies closer, leans down to slant their lips together. They kiss and kiss, hips rolling in lazy concert, soft murmurings rising on a slow tide to shuddering moans. Crowley comes with a grunt, spilling warmth over Aziraphale’s clothed cock, and the indolent depravity of it all pushes Aziraphale to his own peak. He comes in his pants with a soft groan and slumps back against the mattress. Crowley, panting, settles at his side with a fond smile.

“You’ve made a mess of me,” Aziraphale sighs.

“I know,” Crowley says, parroting him smugly. He dips his fingers beneath the band of Aziraphale’s pants, draws them out to lick them clean. “S’good look on you.”

Aziraphale purses his lips and swats at him. “Oh, hush, you rogue.”

Crowley smirks, but it’s a soft thing, all brazen adoration and not an ounce of mischief. “I love you, angel.”

“And I adore you. Now, will you be able to sleep?”

Crowley chuckles, waving a hand to vanish the mess, and winds an arm around Aziraphale’s middle. “Think I’ll manage it. Might even have a nice dream or two.”

Aziraphale presses a kiss to his brow. _I don’t need anyone else,_ he thinks, but doesn’t dare say. _I don’t need the rest of the world because my world is right here. With you. _

-

It isn’t perfection, this life – far from it. How could it be, with the humans creating their ravening weapons to butcher angels and demons in the outside world? With the Archangels slain? The fields Aziraphale could see from the hilltop had overgrown years ago, plans to reap and sow abandoned when the humans began narrowing the scope of their resources. Humans either fought or bent their work toward mandated tasks designed to help the war effort. Those who refused, according to Newt, were ostracized by society and singled-out by Freedom Fighters for retribution. They’d seen it done, once – in London, before they left. A young priest protesting the war had been murdered and hung in the vault of his own cathedral, left to languish beside the butchered carcasses of angels and demons. 

He’d been a friend of Anathema’s. She still has nightmares about it. 

Things like that don’t happen in Seaford, but even the hush of the coastal countryside can’t smother the whispers. As if massacring angels and demons weren’t bloodshed enough. 

No, this life is far from perfection. Aziraphale sees it in the tense line of Crowley’s shoulders, the way he’s taken to prowling around the cottage like a caged tiger. He is a wild, free creature, pushing against his bounds since Eden, since before the Beginning. The confinement is slowly driving him mad, and Aziraphale hates himself for his part in it. 

This life can never be perfect, not really. But Aziraphale tries to find the good in it, glimmers amidst the rubble and scree. There are the nights with Crowley, curled together in a warm semblance of peace. There are the mornings, sunlight slanting through the windows to burnish Crowley’s skin white-gold as they reach for each other. There is the balmy air of the garden, the rich scent of soil and growing things. 

Aziraphale has taken to reinforcing the wards twice a day: once before sunup and once at dusk. Sometimes, when the terror grips him and twists his intestines into knots, he does it a third time. The ritual no longer calms him as it used to; it offers a fleeting sense of safety, but one he can never truly capture, always drifting just out of reach. The strength of the wards is never far from his mind. Often, staring at the page of a book he has memorized word-for-word, he will do a quick mental check. If Crowley notices the preoccupied look on his face and guesses at the cause, he never remarks on it. 

It isn’t perfection, this life. But sometimes it edges close to happiness.

Aziraphale should have known it could never last.

-

One year after Elena reports Michael and Uriel’s deaths, Aziraphale returns from checking the wards to find the flag on the postbox upright again. 

Blankness fills his mind for a long, taffy-stretched moment. He cannot think, so he cannot feel. Cannot process the cold lump of dread that must certainly be congealing in his belly. Cannot taste the bile filling the back of his mouth. He opens the postbox, takes out the shining envelope, and closes it. His fingers are numb but steady as he pushes the flag back down. 

This time, he stops at the garden gate. “Crowley.”

His voice sounds perfectly normal to his own ears, but Crowley must hear a note of wrongness in it. He lowers the shears, eyes sharp. “Angel? Something wrong?”

Aziraphale holds up the envelope. Crowley’s eyes widen, and in an instant he is rushing to the gate, shears forgotten in the dirt. He makes to snatch the envelope away, but Aziraphale lifts it out of reach. “It’s addressed to me.”

It is. Aziraphale’s name is printed in neat, block-letters on the front: Gabriel’s hand. The missive inside hums with holy energy.

Crowley glares at the envelope. “Fine. But I’m coming, too. Not letting you open that arsehole’s letters alone.”

Aziraphale nods. In any other circumstance, he might have tried to assuage Crowley’s nerves with a smile, but he can’t think enough to smile because if he thinks enough to do anything more than putting one foot in front of the other, he _will _dissolve into a gibbering mess. He walks into the cottage with Crowley one step behind.

In the kitchen, Aziraphale lays the envelope on the table. They stare at it.

“What d’you think it is?” Crowley says at last. 

Aziraphale shakes his head. “No idea. I made myself perfectly clear, before. I can’t believe he would…” He trails off, throat tight with fury and a sudden swell of unshed tears. “If—if he tries to make me fight, Crowley, I’ll—”

“Aziraphale.” Crowley’s hand covers his, and his tone is gentle but firm. “You don’t owe Gabriel anything. If he’d had his way, you and I would have been destroyed ages ago.”

“I know.”

“You don’t have to read this if you don’t want to. I can take it out and burn it. Just say the word.”

“I know.” Aziraphale finds his smile, then: a frail, tremulous thing. He turns his hand over and braids their fingers together. “I know, darling. Thank you.”

And so, Crowley’s hand clasped in his, Aziraphale opens the envelope with a snap of his fingers. The letter within emanates a cold, sterile light. Drawing a deep breath, he gathers his courage and touches a finger to the paper.

And plunges into another world.

Aziraphale opens his eyes, blinking past the sudden onslaught of sea spray. He is soaring over a vast body of water that churns and leaps below, foam-crested waves reflecting the slate gray of the sky. Cold wind batters him as he beats the air with his wings, each powerful stroke a sonic crash like thunder. For a moment, he is lost in the sheer pleasure of flight. It’s been so long since he dared unfurl his wings, and the freedom of wheeling through the sky, powerful and unfettered – _oh, it’s intoxicating. _

He is so overcome by the sensation of flight that it takes him a moment to notice the chalk-white cliffs looming on the horizon. They speed closer with every beat of his wings, and before long, the outline of a beach scrawls into being. Figures appear, tiny dots swiftly resolving into forms. Humans. 

Humans, and he is the Archangel Gabriel.

Dread grips Aziraphale. He counts six figures in all: four clustered together near the water and two standing together higher onshore. As he flies closer, the featureless forms grow distinct. The four clustered together number two women and two men. The two higher up on the beach are mere boys. 

_Worms, all of them,_ he thinks, and he knows that is Gabriel’s thought: dropped, chilly and vile, into his mind with a flourish. _Filth-sucking worms._

A sword appears in his hand, fire licking along the steel and streaking after his soaring form like the tail of a comet. Gabriel’s intent is clear and Aziraphale is but a bystander, powerless to stop him, and _why would he make me watch this, what does he think will—_

His racing thoughts leap off the track to crash, mangled into insensibility, as the figures on the beach come into sharp focus. They are not mere humans, and all at once the reason for Gabriel’s missive is clear. Aziraphale wants to tear his fingers away from the letter, to rip himself out of the vision, but a sick sense of certainty holds him fast.

As he nears the beach, one woman raises her head. Her hair is tied back in a braid, but even at this distance, Aziraphale sees the dark strands escaping to float on the sea-breeze. She purses her lips and huffs as she pushes the hair from her face. It is a gesture he has seen countless times as she helped Crowley planting and harvesting in his garden. He remembers laying a hand on her mother’s belly and thinking, _Be safe._

Something in his heart pulls, tears. Bleeds.

_Oh, no. Please, please, no—_

Elena Pulsifer-Device is as close to Agnes Nutter as genetics will allow. And so, when she stands and faces Gabriel as he bullets toward the beach, her gift for prophecy shaves ahead of his arrival by seconds. 

In seconds, each human comes into sharp focus. Elena, Anathema, Newt, Morgan. A man and boy he doesn’t recognize, though their resemblance suggests they are related. Newt and Anathema are crouched beside a mound of sand they’ve been fashioning into a castle. Elena is sprinting toward them, bare feet wet and salt-crusted from the sea. Morgan, standing beside the other boy, stares at her with mute shock as she gestures toward Gabriel’s approach. She may as well be fighting the grip of gravity. 

Gabriel is upon them in an instant, his flight scything the waters apart in his wake. Sand sprays as his feet strike the shore. He lifts the flaming sword, casting a sour glow in the gray half-light. 

“Dad!” Elena shouts, bolting toward her parents. “Mum!”

Gabriel rushes them. Anathema is on her feet before he reaches them, one hand gripping Newt at the elbow to help him up. Elena spins on her heel, arms thrown out as if to shield them from his wrath. _“Run!”_

Gabriel raises the blade, intent on cutting her in two. Memories assault Aziraphale – Elena trailing after Crowley on unsteady, toddler legs, saying _Auntie, Auntie, Auntie _– but he is helpless to halt the swing of Gabriel’s arm as it brings down the sword. 

Pain spears through his temple, a psychic assault that very nearly brings him to his knees. His sword falls to the sand and he claps both hands to his head with a scream. The attack retreats as swiftly as it came, suddenly depleted, and he blinks past the fog of pain to glimpse Anathema staggering toward him. Her hair is a dark, whirling cloud and her eyes are wild with ferocity. Blood trickles down her nose, over her lips, and the realization of what she’s just done stuns Aziraphale. He hadn’t thought it possible for witches to use their power thus, but perhaps it is a channel that only runs between angels and humans – a link on the same cosmic plane, exploited only at great cost. 

No sooner has Aziraphale formed the thought than another burst of pain erupts, this time very physical, a white-hot agony that screams through every nerve ending in his body. His mind flies back to London, to the net, to the humans’ filthy hands pinning him down as the blade bites into his wing. Anathema stands in his shadow, gripping a dagger. Golden blood streams from the steel. He scarcely has a moment to be shocked – Anathema, always a staunch pacifist, has one of those hideous ravening blades – before he swings at her with a closed fist. She hurtles like a broken doll into the surf. 

“Anathema!” Newt cries. Gabriel turns to see him clutching at Elena, shoving her behind him. Pain throbs through his body and he claps a hand to his side. His palm comes away slick and hot with blood. Scarlet rage swamps his vision.

He is so furious he barely notices the second grown man, utterly unfamiliar to him. _Tom’s father,_ he wonders as the man draws his own ravening blade. The moment he is within the reach of his wingspan, Gabriel hurls him away with a blow strong enough to shatter bone. The man collapses, gasping, into the sand. 

In the scant seconds taken to swat aside the annoyance, Elena has fled up the beach toward Morgan and Tom. Newt is stumbling in a wide circle around Aziraphale, wary of his wingspan but desperate to get to the sea. Aziraphale glances over his shoulder to see Anathema struggling to sit amidst the shallow waves. Her hands flutter at her chest as she gulps and chokes on air. He had misjudged the power of his blow – it had only winded her, not killed her outright. 

“Anathema,” Newt says. “Love, wait for me—”

Trapped in Gabriel’s body, Aziraphale is acutely aware of the Archangel’s strength, his warrior swiftness. He knows every twitch of muscle, as powerful and economical and practiced as a ballet dancer’s. And so, when he dips down to snatch up the dropped sword, pivots on his heel, and lunges with the blade outstretched in a single, fluid motion, Aziraphale cannot be surprised. The sword point slides under Newt’s arm, slicing through jacket and shirt to find the narrow gap between his ribs. His skin gives way so _easily, _the diaphragm beneath yielding with a barely-palpable _pop. _Humans may be the Almighty’s favored children, gifted and clever above all, but they are so very fragile. Her own tender love, transmuted into delicate flesh and lives suspended on gossamer strings.

Gabriel yanks back the sword in a spurt of blood. Newt collapses to the sand.

_“Dad!”_

The scream careening down the beach belongs to Morgan. Elena has her arms around him, holding him back as he fights her with sudden animal fury. He bites and scratches and elbows her, screaming and sobbing, but Elena holds him with all her might. Tears stream from her wide, shocked eyes. Gabriel rises, clasping a hand to his injury with a wince, and strides up the beach toward them. 

_Kill them first,_ he thinks. _Let the witch see. Then I’ll deal with her._

Aziraphale hurls his will against the Archangel’s, but of course that does nothing – he is only a passenger, forced to watch past events play out. Helpless to tear himself away. Morgan’s screams grow raw as he stalks implacably closer, soaring above the howling wind and shrieking gulls. His sword is wet with human blood, hungry for more.

Agony rips through him. He staggers to one knee, burying the blade in the sand to prop himself up. Tom’s father stands behind him. He wrenches out the dagger, slick with sunlit angel blood.

_“Monster!” _he hisses, and drives the blade into Aziraphale’s back.

Aziraphale screams, and it is Gabriel’s voice, Gabriel’s scream as the dagger cuts deep. He spins around, throwing out a wing to knock the man aside. His every heartbeat is a pulse of pain and blood. All at once, the toll of his injuries is too much. If he keeps fighting, he risks unconsciousness at the mercy of humans. He staggers to his feet and beats his wings, gritting his teeth against the agony. Sand clouds the air. He rises, zigzagging, into the sky. 

Beneath him, Anathema stumbles to Newt’s side. She clutches at him, shakes him, but he doesn’t so much as twitch. As Elena and Morgan sprint across the beach, Anathema rolls her husband onto his back. His eyes stare, vacant and unblinking, and someone is howling, a mourning keen of soul-deep anguish. 

The scene evaporates and Aziraphale is back in the cottage, Crowley’s hand clenched painfully in his. In the ensuing pocket of silence, he realizes that terrible, tortured sound was his. 

He meets Crowley’s gaze, finds devastation reflected back at him. He was touching Aziraphale the entire time; he saw everything, felt everything as Aziraphale had. For a long, bereft moment, they can only stare at each other. 

They look down at the letter on the table. A single sentence emblazons the paper, glowing with holy light.

_I told you,_ it says, _you would regret refusing me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW minor character death.


	7. the shackling entity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm Ineffablegame and/or Zingiberis on Tumblr.

These days, only Elena visits in the Land Rover.

She doesn’t visit often – after clawing her way through the stilted education system’s myriad wartime loopholes for grudging admission into a PhD program, her priorities have changed. The number of applicants into any educational program that doesn’t involve research, engineering, or business has plummeted drastically in the last few decades. Human civilization is a mere skeleton, now, fighting on even as the vultures pick its bones clean. No-one has time for culture or, God forbid, _art._

In short, when Elena decided to pursue a degree in classics, everyone thought her quite mad. 

“That’s nothing new,” she had explained, sitting across from them at the kitchen table. Even then, she was the only Pulsifer-Device to visit. She lifted her teacup for a sip, mouth threading a thin line at the bitter taste. “Everybody already thinks I’m mad, so. I’ll get on fine.”

The excuse is perfectly sound, of course. Perfectly sensible. Perfectly _perfect, _as if it had been tailor-made to order. Every stitch neat, not a seam out of place, and Aziraphale can’t help but wonder. With every stolid, stubborn visit since that terrible day on the beach, Elena has shown her love for them. Every time she steps out of the Land Rover, shutting the door a little too firmly behind her, she faces down the cottage with a lifted chin and a hard look in her blue eyes. Newt’s eyes. She marches in with an air of defiance, waging her own war with Heaven and Hell and all the mess in between. _See? You can’t make me hate them. I’m still here._

It’s just that, though, isn’t it. Elena’s every visit is trailed by a thundercloud of insolence. If she’s coming to the cottage in spite of herself, determined to _prove a point, _she might as well stay away altogether. 

Eight years have passed since Newt bled his life out onto the sand of Seaford Beach. Eight years, and Elena is the only one who will still see them.

-

“D’you think the little viper has a fellow?”

Aziraphale lowers his book with a frown. Even as he looks at Crowley, his thoughts skip ahead, reciting the lines he knows by heart. He could narrate each book in the crate word-for-word without pause, if he wanted. Even _Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine._ But he likes the feeling of the book in his hands, the whisper-thin pages between his fingers. “Pardon?”

“A fellow,” Crowley repeats. Leaning against the sitting room doorway, donned in his gardening gear, he strikes a curious balance between bucolic ease and nervous tension. “A suitor. A gentleman caller.”

“I think the common term is _boyfriend.”_

Crowley screws up his face. “Ugh. Fine. One of those.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. It’s not like she’s bringing him around to meet us, if she has got one. Why do you ask?”

A shrug, so nonchalant he appears to be melting. “Dunno.”

“That would be odd, wouldn’t it,” Aziraphale muses. “Seems only yesterday she was hiding behind Anathema’s skirts. How old is she, by the way? I’ve quite forgotten, humans do grow so—”

“Twenty-six,” Crowley says, automatic. “Three months ago.”

Aziraphale says nothing for a moment, his mind reeling. Time passes so strangely here; a sludge of molasses one moment, a riptide the next. The lurch of it unbalances him. “Goodness,” he says at last. “That happened quickly.”

“Not really.”

Crowley turns and slinks out before Aziraphale can respond. As the kitchen door closes behind him and his shadow slants across the window – back to the garden – Aziraphale stares at the place where he stood. Everything feels suddenly off-kilter, as if he’s missed a step in a dance he didn’t know he was in. He considers setting his book aside, going out to the garden. _Talking_ to Crowley properly, not this—this dizzying pace designed to trip him up. 

But Crowley is already out of reach. A sense of foreboding pins Aziraphale to his seat. No, he won’t go to him – not now. Licking his lips, running his fingers over the ridges of pages, he lowers his gaze to his book. Everything will sort itself out. 

Everything will be fine.

-

Crowley wants to kill Gabriel. 

He’s wanted that for eight years, now – wants it with a dogged ferocity that frightens Aziraphale. He wants to kill Gabriel like a wound wants to fester, to inflame and blacken and rot. If he can’t cure the wanting, cut it away, it may very well destroy him. 

The day they watched Gabriel attack Seaford is a weight on Aziraphale’s soul. Like Crowley’s wrath, it will never abate. Unlike Crowley’s wrath, it doesn’t spur him to action. If anything, it pushes him down, suffocates him beneath its mountainous bulk. Every time he brushes too close to the memory – _sea spray sand blood gold steel screams – _the weight descends, paralyzing him.

_I could have prevented it,_ he thinks, every time. _I could have protected the cottage better, expanded the wards, kept Heaven’s gaze away. I could have. And if I had, Newt may very well still be alive._

Every time he thinks of it, the weight grows heavier. Aziraphale has never needed to breathe, not really. But now he feels as if he’s suffocating.

When he does dare to think on that day, the first thing he remembers is Crowley’s eyes: their wide, vacant stare, uncomprehending in the instant before they darkened with hatred. Golden irises broadened and crowded out the whites. If, over the past six-thousand years on Earth, Crowley had gained a single scrap of humanity – well, he lost it then. Only the serpent remained. 

“It’s not true,” he had said, teeth gritted around the words. “It’s—no. It’s not— can’t be—”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale croaked. He reached for him, needing contact, needing to _ground himself. _“My love, I—”

But Crowley stepped out of reach and began pacing around the room. As his lanky legs windmilled, his hands flew up to clutch and tear at his hair. “It’s not true,” he said, over and over and over again. “It’s not true, it’s not true, it’sss not…”

Aziraphale turned and considered the letter. Despite its contents, despite the glow emanating from the neat block-letters, it seemed such a trifling thing. Almost harmless. 

A _snap_ sounded and a blaze of heat erupted on the tabletop. The letter roared into flames, so hot the holy paper was immolated in less than a second. When the fire vanished, a smudge of char remained on the cracked wood. The air stank of sulfur and ash. 

Aziraphale turned back to Crowley. Teeth bared, shoulders rising and falling with quick, punching breaths, he looked half-wild. But when he lowered his hand and spoke, his voice was governed by a terrible restraint. “We have to kill him.”

Aziraphale was witless with the shock of Newt’s death, the shock of this new pronouncement. “What?”

“Gabriel.” Crowley stalked over to the table and touched the charred mark. He lifted his hand and studied the dark smudges on his fingers with hungry intensity. “We can’t let him get away with this. We have to kill him.”

“We… Crowley, we can’t…”

“We _can.” _Crowley’s voice was flat, utterly composed, and an icicle of fear slid down Aziraphale’s spine. “We have to. This isn’t about the war anymore, Aziraphale. He attacked us _personally. _He killed one of our own. If we don’t fight back, he goes unpunished.”

“If… It could be a trap,” Aziraphale floundered. “He could be trying to lure us out.”

“What if it is?” Crowley demanded. “It doesn’t matter! If he wants us to come out, fine. We’ll give him what he wants.”

“He’s an Archangel, Crowley. We can’t fight him.”

“We _can!” _ Crowley stalked closer to Aziraphale, fury emanating off him in waves of infernal power. They pushed at him, threatened to singe him, and ethereal power rose in his chest in answer. “You fought him off last time, didn’t you? You can fight him again!”

The cold creeping along Aziraphale’s spine found teeth and gnawed deep, past flesh to nestle in the very marrow of his bones. “I don’t _want_ to fight,” he said. “I can’t—I can’t.”

Crowley shook his head and closed the distance between them, gathering his hands in a fierce grip. Aziraphale wanted to step away, but Crowley held him fast. “You won’t be alone. I’ll be right there, fighting beside you. Together, we can—”

“No.”

The strength in his tone took even Aziraphale aback. The power rising within him – a direct counterpoint to Crowley’s – pushed outward, a chill wind to gutter out the flames of Hell. The wild light dimmed in Crowley’s eyes. His hands tightened their grip. “Aziraphale…”

“No, Crowley, I can’t.” Aziraphale looked to the floor, unable to face him. “I _won’t_ fight Gabriel. And neither will you.”

Crowley tore his hands away. “We can’t let this simply _pass, _Aziraphale! If we don’t do something, what’s to stop that bastard from butchering every other living being we care about? What about Anathema? What about Elena and Morgan?”

“You saw what happened to him,” Aziraphale said. “He’s wounded, grievously so. He wouldn’t dare attack the humans again. Not when they’ve got their guard up.”

“That’s exactly why we should go after him now! He’s injured, he’s vulnerable!”

“He’s retreated. Most likely, he’s taken shelter among his troops. What, do you think we can fight all the forces of Heaven and Hell? The two of us, against all of them?”

Aziraphale regretted the words the moment they left his lips. Because – stubbornly, foolishly, _courageously – _of course Crowley had thought they could. It was why he had suggested the Arrangement, so long ago. It was why he had proposed they share the task of raising the Antichrist. It was why, when he believed Aziraphale gone, he had resigned himself to watching the world burn down through the dust-grimed windows of a pub. Crowley believed that he and Aziraphale _could _fight Heaven and Hell. If they were together, he believed they could do damn near anything.

Crowley was silent, and Aziraphale knew the same thoughts were racing through his own mind. “You know,” he said at last, sounding unspeakably weary, “I thought that’s what we were doing all along.” 

Aziraphale reached for him. “Crowley…”

“Forget it.” Crowley turned away and moved toward the kitchen door. 

“Crowley, wait,” Aziraphale began.

“Leave me alone.” Crowley hesitated on the threshold. He sighed, and all the strength seemed to drain from him. “I need to be alone, angel. Please.”

Aziraphale nodded, even though it was a pointless gesture because Crowley couldn’t see it. His throat was full of a choking pain. Crowley opened the door, stepped outside, and was gone.

-

By the time Aziraphale plucked up the courage to go out to the garden, dusk had fallen.

He found Crowley picking tomatoes and tossing them in a basket with the casual vehemence of one who fully intends on miracling away any bruises. As Aziraphale pushed open the garden gate with a faint _squeak _of hinges, the demon grew tense for a heartbeat. Then he returned to his work.

“How are you getting on?” asked Aziraphale. “Carrots still gossiping?”

Crowley made no response, and Aziraphale very nearly winced at the stupidity of his own small talk. He dropped the pretense, swallowed past the fear clotting his tongue, and stopped a few paces away from Crowley. 

“I… I know you’re cross with me, and that’s understandable,” he began. Each word faltered, stumbled, but he soldiered on, because if – in all his long, blessed existence – he ever needed courage, it was now. “But if you would hear me out, I would… greatly appreciate it.” He licked his lips, suddenly parched. “I. I love you. If any harm were to befall you, I couldn’t bear it. And I’m not… I’m not saying you’re the only reason I won’t leave. That would be terribly unfair and cruel. It would be trying to cover my cowardice with love, and I never want to use my love for you like that. It would ruin it, make it… ugly. And wrong.” 

He paused, trying to reorder the tangled, confused terror of his thoughts. And there it was, wasn’t it? The very bedrock of his existence for so, _so long, _the mountain about to topple and crush him. “I’m so… _so afraid, _all the time. Sometimes I can’t move or think, that’s how afraid I am. And I hate it, I hate it so much.” He tried to continue, found his throat stopped up by tears. He forced the words out in a choked rasp. “I—I never wanted to be this way. Pathetic, paralyzed. I hate the way I am, and if you… if you can’t…”

He couldn’t say it, couldn’t give Crowley the kindness of a mere offer. _You can leave, if you want. I know this is torture for you. You can leave, and I wouldn’t love you any less for it._

Crowley stood and reached for him. His hands were filthy, fingernails ringed with dirt, and the soft, chaste kiss he pressed to Aziraphale’s lips carried a lingering taste of budding green life. 

“It’s getting dark,” he said. “Let’s go to bed, angel.”

They said little else to each other for the rest of the night. As he lay by Crowley’s side in the dark of their bedroom, staring up into the fathomless murk, Aziraphale felt cold and hollow and alone. 

_You can leave, if you want. _The offer clanged in his mind, a mantra echoing into insignificance. _You can leave. You can leave. You can leave._

He may have slept that night, but peace eluded him. 

-

Nine years after Newt’s death – because that’s how time is measured, now, _before_ and _after Newt’s death _– Aziraphale finally musters the courage to ask the question that has been hovering on his tongue since Elena began visiting alone.

“What has become of young Morgan?”

The question drops, heavy and awkward, into a sudden, ringing silence. Elena and Crowley look up from their teacups. 

For a time, Aziraphale has a hazy notion of what to expect. Sorrow, perhaps, and a sort of sullen, familial guilt: that Morgan hasn’t visited the cottage because he blames them, as Anathema must, for Newt’s death. It was their proximity that killed him, after all. This is why it has taken so long for Aziraphale to voice the question: he fears such an answer, as sensible as it would be. 

After a time, Elena purses her lips. “I wouldn’t know. We haven’t spoken in years.”

“What?”

“He left home a year after…” She trails off, a muscle moving in her jaw. “He went to live with Tom and his father. He’s a Freedom Fighter, now.”

Aziraphale looks to Crowley and finds his own unsurprised sorrow reflected back at him. He has his answer.

-

Every time Elena visits, Crowley bids her take something from the garden.

“We have more than enough,” he says, glossing over the fact that, strictly speaking, they don’t _need_ any of it. “Take what you like. And if you think your mum would want anything, take it and bring it to her.”

And every time, Elena smiles and takes something small – an herb that won’t be missed, a meagre basket of vegetables – but she never promises to deliver it to Anathema. Crowley doesn’t push her, and Aziraphale is glad of that. He suspects nothing from the garden – nothing bearing traces of _them, _their continued, blighting existence – would make it to Anathema’s door. But Elena is kind, so she lets the charade play out. 

She tries, once and only once, to bring them a loaf of bread. Perhaps she thinks they are trading goods; perhaps she wants to repay them. But when Aziraphale lays eyes on the small, stale loaf of bread allotted by the wartime rations system, he has to force a smile past his disgust. 

“How lovely. Thank you, dear girl,” he says. “That will go just perfectly with tea.”

Later, wincing through bites of bread-shaped rock, he catches a glimpse of Elena staring into her teacup, face flushed with embarrassment. She doesn’t bring food after that.

-

“Oh…” Elena turns, fingers drumming on the door handle of the Land Rover. “Adam says hello, by the way.”

The words, uttered with such forceful nonchalance, take several seconds to make sense. And then Crowley splutters explosively, _“What?”_

“Adam Young,” Elena says, her tone belied by a furtive glance into the Land Rover, as if she expects salvation to come from the scabbed upholstery. “Obviously.”

“’Obviously?’” Crowley parrots. _“’Obviously?’”_

“Calm down, my love,” Aziraphale chides. Then, directing a menacing smile at Elena, he repeats, “’Obviously?’”

“We’re—we’re acquainted,” Elena says. “Sort of.”

“Acquainted,” Crowley says. Evidently his vocabulary has been reduced to repeating others’ words. “You’re… _acquainted_ with the Antichrist. With the literal son of Satan.”

“That’s rich, coming from a literal _demon,” _Elena volleys back. “Who is _acquainted_ with his hereditary enemy, no less.”

“Oh, dear,” Aziraphale murmurs.

“A-ha!” Crowley jabs an accusatory finger at her. “So you admit the acquaintanceship is more than a mere _acquaintanceship.”_

“Can you two stop quibbling over semantics?” Aziraphale asks.

“Oh, stop being ridiculous,” Elena snaps, face scarlet. “We’re friends. That’s all.”

“Which is it?” Crowley demands. “Friends or acquaintances?”

“It’s none of your business is what it is,” Elena snipes. “I should never have mentioned it.”

“He’s, what? Eleven years older than you? Twelve?”

“Honestly, Auntie. I’m twenty-eight.”

“And he’s decrepit!”

“He’s _forty._ Not _decrepit.”_

“Why are you hanging about with the Antichrist, anyway?” Crowley asks. “Didn’t your mum warn you against occult evils?”

“No,” Elena retorts, “in fact, she rather encouraged them. I grew up around an angel and a demon, unless you forgot. And, if you _must _know, I’m doing part-time work with the Them. Adam is too busy to manage it, so I… help, here and there. That’s all.”

“Too busy?” Aziraphale echoes. “Doing what?”

She cocks her head, momentarily puzzled. “Getting ready for the election.”

Aziraphale hadn’t thought it possible to be taken aback any further, but it appears he’s been taken aback all the way to the Garden. “An election for what?”

“For…” Elena hesitates for a fraction of a second, and it is a blow beneath Aziraphale’s ribs to realize that she isn’t sure she can trust them. Then, seeming to shake off her reluctance, she continues, “For the new Prime Minister.”

-

Adam Young, it seems, has been rather busy.

Here, cloistered away in the cottage, it’s easy to forget how swiftly things change. Cities fall, ravaged by Freedom Fighters and the forces of Heaven and Hell. Children grow into adults and wither into old age. And the son of Satan, against all improbabilities, grows into a man determined to enact peace.

According to Elena, Adam’s pro-peace organization – the Them – has, despite all the odds, gained steady ground since its inception. For all humanity’s warmongering, there are those who want the world to keep on existing. The very idea splinters Aziraphale’s heart, pressurizes it and threatens to bleed out all the hope he has locked away. It’s an alarming sensation, so he pushes the idea down. Buries it.

But, try as he might, he cannot bury Elena’s report. _“Adam’s been rising through the ranks in record time. He has loads of support and friends in high places. People are starting to think that, if he becomes Prime Minister, he can change things. He may even be able to help end the war.”_

It’s all rubbish, of course. Must be.

“D’you think he could do it?” Crowley asks, after Elena has gone and Aziraphale has performed his routine check of the wards. 

Aziraphale, nestled beside him in the dark, makes a noncommittal sound. He reaches over Crowley’s shoulder and tugs the duvet up, covering them both. He closes his eyes with a sigh of bone-deep weariness.

“He could,” Crowley murmurs, half to himself. “If anyone could do it, it’d be Adam Young. Change the world.” A soft, disbelieving chuckle. “Now, _that _would piss off his father. No doubt.”

Aziraphale presses his nose to Crowley’s chest, inhaling the familiar, comforting scent of his skin. He wants to agree, wants to fan this rare spark of optimism. But right now, he can’t marshal the energy for it. He keeps thinking of Adam as a gangly teenager, refusing to use his power for the greater good. How can he expect to bring about change now, with the world on the brink of collapse? It beggars belief. He may be grown, now, a man of forty, but that doesn’t make him _wise. _Aziraphale has seen fools go to their graves, liver-spotted and frail and so _certain_ the world owes them a modicum of respect for the mayfly years they spent on it. Age and wisdom rarely go hand-in-hand.

No – if Adam Young couldn’t end the war when he was a teenager, full of youthful optimism and impulsivity, he certainly won’t do it as an adult. No matter the tools he has at his disposal.

But Crowley is smiling – Aziraphale can hear it in his tone, that cautious unfurling of hope. And so, because he loves Crowley, he doesn’t voice his doubts. _Let him dream. Let it be a long, lovely dream._

Aziraphale curls an arm around Crowley and draws him close, kissing his bare shoulder. “Good night, my dear.”

-

Aziraphale thinks they should name the cottage. 

“It only makes sense,” he insists, trailing Crowley around the garden. “Every other cottage in this country has a name. Ours should, too.”

Crowley snips his shears, eyes fixed on the blades. “I dunno. Not having a name seems quite… enigmatic. I think I like it.”

“Really, my dear,” Aziraphale sighs. “Why not? It could add a… a dash of whimsy to the place. A homey sense, if you will. And, really, I have seen some cottages with quite lovely names. Fox Corner, Rose Hill, The Laurels. That sort of thing.”

“Shangri La,” Crowley deadpans. 

Aziraphale rolls his eyes. “Oh, _fine, _be that way.” He walks back to the front door, notes the absence of a placard with a quaint, cottage-y name, and huffs in exasperation. The slam of the door behind him cuts off Crowley’s laughter. 

For all his frustration, however, Aziraphale can be patient. You don’t pine after your adversarial frenemy for decades without amassing a hefty stockpile of patience. Now that the pining has a consistent outlet, Aziraphale bends that patience toward other uses – such as the covert naming of cottages.

He gets his chance a few days later, on a sunny morning after checking the wards. Having returned to find Crowley basking in a golden bar of sunlight, still asleep, lips parted just so – he is helpless and heartsick with longing. Aziraphale strips down to his smalls, folding every article of clothing and setting it aside with care, and climbs back into bed. The first brush of his dawn-chilled fingers startles Crowley awake. For the briefest moment, he shrinks away, cold-blooded creature that he is. Then awareness comes into his sleepy eyes and he reaches for Aziraphale. 

“Too bloody cold,” he mutters as he presses Aziraphale down against the sheets. His hands skate over his belly, up his chest, mapping paths of warmth in their wake. 

“Dreadfully sorry.”

“Nngh. Warm you _right _up.”

Crowley shifts to sit astride Aziraphale. After a long, languid stretch of sun-hazed snogging, he removes one hand from Aziraphale’s hair to reach for the waistband of his pants. 

Aziraphale breaks the kiss. “Wait.”

“What?” Crowley asks, startled out of his sleepiness. 

Aziraphale reaches up to place a hand on his chest. His fingers twist around the neck of his t-shirt, snaring him even as he keeps him at arm’s length. “Help me choose a name for the cottage.”

A baffled laugh bursts out of Crowley. “A _name?”_

“Yes. It’s been bothering me ever so much.”

“Hmm.” Crowley quirks an eyebrow. “I bet it does.” He wraps his fingers around Aziraphale’s wrist, thumb rubbing over his pulse-point. “Bet it keeps you awake at night.”

“It does.” Aziraphale is pleased to hear his voice emerge steady in spite of his sprinting heartbeat. He had meant to retain his senses, to coax the compromise out of Crowley, but the awareness of Crowley’s hands on him has strung him taut, and all at once he can scarcely _breathe_ for how badly he wants those hands on his body. “It… truly does.”

“Can’t have that, can we.” Crowley brings Aziraphale’s hand to his lips. The kiss he places on his palm is chaste, almost _perfunctory,_ but the delicacy with which Crowley holds him makes him shiver. It is love and attention and fierce protectiveness, all knitted into the very fibers of those hands – skin, bone, muscles, tendons – all bent toward holding him close. The magnitude of such love is very nearly overwhelming. 

“May…maybe we should think of names,” he manages. 

A smug smile curves Crowley’s mouth. “Yeah? All right.”

Aziraphale wraps his other arm around him and pulls him down. He runs his hands up Crowley’s back, rucking up the t-shirt so he can feel the corded muscle and jutting bones underneath. It never ceases to amaze him, how frail Crowley appears. How strong he truly is. Crowley shifts so Aziraphale can tug the t-shirt over his head, toss it aside. He tilts his head, hair rumpled, eyes hooded. 

“There you are, old serpent,” Aziraphale says.

“Angel.”

Aziraphale raises a hand to cup his face. Crowley turns, kisses his palm again, and a laugh shivers out of him. 

“’Eden’s Hall,’ perhaps,” Aziraphale says, once he’s caught his breath.

Crowley makes a face. “Too obvious.” He leans down, nuzzles the hinge of his jaw. The faint scrape of his teeth is enough to momentarily derail Aziraphale’s thoughts. “How about ‘The Den of Iniquity?’”

“Oh, really.” Aziraphale swats at him, but the action turns into a grasp as Crowley begins sucking at his neck. His greedy, nimble fingers steal underneath the waistband of his pants to grip and stroke his hardening prick, hand already uncannily slick. Pleasure sparks down Aziraphale’s thighs and up his belly, making him gasp and bow into the touch. 

“Or,” Crowley says, musingly, as the tight circle of his fist moves up and down Aziraphale’s cock, “we could be a little more discreet. ‘The Holy Column,’ perhaps?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale whines, partly from pleasure and partly from mortification, “absolutely _not.”_

“’The Holy Hole,’ then. You’ve got to appreciate a double entendre.”

“It doesn’t… _hah…_ doesn’t count as a double entendre if it’s obvious enough to make one cringe, I’m afraid.”

_“Au contraire,”_ Crowley announces. His hips have begun to rock, pressing the hard line of his erection against Aziraphale’s thigh in tandem with each jerk of his hand. “The cringier, the better.” His thumb circles the head of Aziraphale’s cock, teasing the slit with just enough pressure to make Aziraphale moan. “’Angel’s Peak.’”

“I should… _oh, _yes, like that… I should discorporate you.”

“But then who would you have to torture with the naming of cottages?” Crowley moves his hand faster, hips thrusting harder. Aziraphale shakily snaps his fingers and their pants vanish. Laughing roughly, Crowley continues, “’Sodom the Second.’”

Aziraphale pushes at his shoulders. “Shut up, shut _up…”_

Laughing, Crowley rises on his hands and knees. His cock hangs heavy and flushed between his legs, and Aziraphale summons a vast reserve of restraint so he doesn’t demand he come back down. Crowley moves to lay between his legs, propped on his elbows. The look he gives Aziraphale is pure wickedness.

“’Angel Cranny,’” he suggests.

“For pity’s sake,” Aziraphale groans. “Crowley, _please…”_

Smirking, Crowley takes his cock between his lips. Aziraphale grips the bedclothes as he sinks into that wet, exquisite heat, a moan building in the back of his throat. Clutching for a shred of composure – for _control_ – he voices the first thought that springs to mind. “You can’t—_oh… _ You can’t distract me that… that easily.” Crowley retaliates by taking him deeper before moving his mouth up the shaft of his cock, torturously slow, pausing to tease the glans with his tongue. Aziraphale chokes on his words, masters himself, and finds them again. “You—you have to help me name it. The… the cottage.”

Crowley’s lips slide off his prick with a slick sound, leaving him bereft. “Still banging on about that, are we? I’m clearly not doing my best.”

Aziraphale props himself up on one elbow and reaches out to thread his fingers through Crowley’s hair. He tugs, just sharply enough to hold him in place, and smiles as he feels Crowley’s cock jerk against his thigh. “You can’t wile your way out of this one, fiend. Surely you can help me with one little name.” He lowers his eyelids, aiming for coy, barely thinking of the words he utters: “Unless you’re afraid?”

All at once, the look of lazy contentment on Crowley’s face vanishes. The change is as abrupt and stunning as a slap, and Aziraphale can do nothing but watch, stinging, as the pallid angles of his beloved’s face twist into a wounded expression. The look is shuttered in less than a second, but Aziraphale knows what he saw.

“Crowley,” he begins, knowing he did something wrong, not quite knowing _what. _“What…”

But Crowley pulls away, putting a cold gulf of space between them. His eyes are narrowed, his posture rigid. “Leave it.”

“But…”

“I’m not _afraid. _I—I don’t know what would make you think that.”

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale says, too quickly. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Crowley winces, and Aziraphale hates himself for it – hates that every word he utters is a barb thrown, no matter how kindly meant. 

“You didn’t mean anything by it,” Crowley says, flat. 

“Just…” Aziraphale casts about for the right words, finding himself at a loss. “Just that it’s all right to be afraid. If you were.”

“Well, which is it?” Crowley snaps. “Am I afraid or am I not?”

“I don’t know why you’re being like this,” Aziraphale retorts, too nettled to placate. “We were… Everything was so lovely, and then you…”

“What, ruined it?” Crowley says, filling the ensuing silence. “Ruined it because I’m so afraid? I can’t imagine what _that _would be like.”

Aziraphale stares at him, too hurt to speak, and Crowley’s face transforms from defensive rage to dismay in an instant. “Oh, fu—angel, I’m so…”

But Aziraphale is disentangling himself from Crowley and staggering off the bed. He is stark naked, plainly ridiculous, and he feels as if he’s been flayed open for scrutiny. Found lacking. Shaking all over with fury, sorrow, and a soul-deep disgust for himself – for the weak, sniveling creature that is beginning to poison even Crowley’s boundless well of love – he turns and leaves the room. 

Crowley’s protests follow him, trailed by the demon himself. “Aziraphale, _angel, _wait!”

Aziraphale stiffens at the desperate grip of Crowley’s hand on his shoulder. He whirls around. So immersed in restraining his own emotions, he has little idea of what is reflected on his face – but whatever it is must be terrible, for it makes Crowley recoil. “Angel.”

“Leave me alone,” Aziraphale says. The cold gulf between them widens, immense and treacherous. 

Crowley watches him, expression unreadable. When Aziraphale leaves, he does not follow. 

-

Later, brooding, Aziraphale understands why his words hurt Crowley so. It is the same reason why he resisted the garden, why he left the apron and gloves Aziraphale gave him untouched for so long. It is the same reason he hasn’t built a bookshelf, despite musing on its necessity time and time again.

Crowley never wanted to _live _in the cottage. He had planned to hide there only for a short time, until the fighting blew over. Except the fighting never blew over, and Aziraphale’s fear of the outside world grew stronger and larger with every passing day. Grew until it was an entity unto itself, shackling Crowley to the South Downs. 

Crowley hates the permanence of their exile. Giving the cottage a name would only add another brick to the walls hemming him in. All these years, he’s probably been itching to tear down those walls, flee into the wide world he has loved since the Beginning. 

But he hasn’t. He’s been here, watching after Aziraphale, keeping him afloat even as he sinks. And Aziraphale called him a coward for it. 

-

Months later, Elena visits again. She is so twitchy and distracted Aziraphale is immediately put on edge. 

“Dear girl,” he says, eyeing her as she sits by the hearth, “are you sure you’re quite all right?”

They are alone in the sitting room, Crowley having gone off to the kitchen to prepare his newest iteration of lemongrass tea. Elena blinks and closes Aziraphale’s copy of _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe_ with infinite care, setting it aside. He personally thinks C.S. Lewis’s works run toward the trite, but the glassy look in the girl’s eyes has nothing to do with boredom. She runs a hand over her brow, suddenly beaded with sweat, as all the color drains from her face. 

“Uncle Aziraphale, I…” She trails off, drags in a shaking breath, and sways. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale cries as he rushes to Elena’s side. “Crowley, hurry, it’s—”

The words dissolve from his lips the moment he sets a hand on Elena’s shoulder, intent on helping her lie down. Instantly, psychic hooks lodge in the very fibers of his incorporeal being, piercing and dragging him into pandemonium. 

Aziraphale stumbles as his feet strike the pavement with jolting force. Righting himself, he looks to his side, to the place where his hand is inextricably linked. Elena stands at his side, fingers gripping his painfully tight. Her blue eyes are fixed straight ahead. He follows her gaze and sucks in a sharp breath. 

They are standing in a clearing of some sort – perhaps a park in decades past, though now it is a withered shade of natural beauty. The grass is patchy and brown and withered husks of trees jutting up into the sky resemble blackened bones. Aziraphale moves his gaze to the horizon and sees the outline of London – a far cry from the London he once knew, but instantly recognizable nonetheless. Pieces are missing – the Pinnacle is gutted and Heron Tower is gone altogether – but other buildings remain. Judging from the view and their surroundings, Aziraphale cautiously puts them at Hampstead Heath. He scans the wasteland around them, unease shifting into sorrow. He had loved London, once. Now, looking upon its ruin, he realizes he loves it still.

Elena’s hand tightens around Aziraphale’s and he looks up. They are standing at the edge of a crowd. Fear grips him and he draws a shaking breath, ordering himself to be calm. _This isn’t real. This is a vision. They can’t see you, can’t touch you. You’re perfectly safe. _

“Thank you all for coming here.” The voice is strong, resonant, commanding. Aziraphale startles when he recognizes traces of the boy he once knew, the gangly teenager he saw but once. Adam Young. Craning his neck, he looks over the heads in the crowd. Adam stands on a ruined tree stump, and the force of his presence turns the meagre podium into a throne fit for a king. “We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but we’ve made amazing progress so far.”

Aziraphale watches, spellbound, as the minutes slide past. Adam is an accomplished speaker, influential and captivating. Every person in the crowd seems to lean into his sphere, drawn by a power untainted by infernal or ethereal forces. In fact, as far as Aziraphale can tell, Adam isn’t relying on his power at all. The terrifying might that once followed him everywhere he went – the perpetual sense of a bomb about to go off – is gone, and all that remains is an unshakable power of conviction. 

He is, as far as Aziraphale can tell, completely human. And he is all the more powerful for it.

A dark shape darts through Aziraphale’s peripheral vision and he turns, the spell broken. It’s a small human, features obscured by a black coat with the hood drawn up. They elbow their way through the crowd, earning looks of indignation before anyone truly realizes what is about to happen. In a fraction of a second before it hits Aziraphale, Elena utters a soft cry. The figure barrels up to the stump and plants their feet directly in front of Adam.

“For the Freedom Fighters!” 

The shout is high, so very nearly hysterical it is impossible to tell whether the speaker is male or female. _It almost sounds animal, _Aziraphale thinks, distantly, before the figure raises their arm. The _crack_ of a gunshot throbs through the air. Adam crumples, wide-eyed, scarlet blooming across his shirt.

Elena tears her hand away from Aziraphale’s and they spill out of the vision. He falls to his hands and knees on the hearth rug, nausea twisting in his belly. He gags as his vision reels. Beside him, Elena is clambering to her feet, using the lintel for support. 

“Angel!” Crowley’s voice is strained, and it is only then that Aziraphale becomes aware of the hands on his shoulders. “Angel, what happened?”

“It’s Adam,” Elena gasps. Her face is ashen, eyes brimming with tears. “They—oh, God, the Freedom Fighters… They’re going to…”

Still stumbling, she weaves out of the sitting room and toward the kitchen. Crowley calls after her, but she makes no response. 

“I’m fine,” Aziraphale assures him, swallowing back the urge to vomit as his stomach flips and churns. “Really, Crowley—go, I’m worried about Elena—”

Crowley rises and chases Elena into the kitchen. “Viper. Little viper! Where—”

“I have to go, Auntie. I’m sorry.”

Aziraphale gathers his strength and rises, staggering after the pair. He can scarcely cobble together a coherent thought, his mind still caught up in the mayhem of the shooting. What sort of vision was that? Judging from Elena’s reaction, it must be of the future. The front door is open when he reaches the kitchen, and he feels the first ward ripple as Elena runs through it, keys in hand. Crowley goes after her, demanding answers, but he may as well be made of dust motes for how little attention she pays him. 

“Hang _on, _for somebody’s sake!” Crowley snaps. “You’re in no condition to be driving!”

“I’ll be fine,” she replies. “I’m already feeling better. And there’s no time to waste.”

“You look like you’re about to collapse!”

“Elena,” Aziraphale says, “you mustn’t go. It’s far too dangerous…”

Elena pauses on the paving stones outside the door. When she turns to face them, her eyes are vicious and red-rimmed, tears tracking down her cheeks. For a brief, painful moment, Aziraphale is looking at Newt, at a child raising children as the world tears itself to pieces. 

“I’ve got to go.” Elena scrubs the heels of her hands over her cheeks, wiping away tears. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to. If I don’t, I won’t be able to forgive myself, especially if…” She trails off, sets her jaw. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”

Crowley takes a step forward. _“Please,_ little viper, don’t—”

But Elena turns on her heel and runs down the path, past the garden and toward the Land Rover. She wrenches the door open, climbs inside, and starts the engine. The door slams shut and dirt fountains up under the wheels as she shifts into drive and barrels off down the road. In seconds, the truck is out of sight. 

-

Crowley wants to follow her, of course. If not to dissuade her from her madness, then to protect her while she carries it out. But the only way to follow her would be to perform a miracle of staggeringly obvious power or to unfurl their wings and fly. It would be far too dangerous to do the former, and Aziraphale cannot do the latter. 

“You could…” Aziraphale trails off, hoping Crowley will intuit the unspoken offer. _You could go on your own. Leave me behind. That way, I wouldn’t be slowing you down._

For a moment, Crowley looks torn. Doubt chases worry across his face before stopping, making a home in the shadows under his eyes, the lines around his mouth. He is considering it, and in that suspended breath of indecision, Aziraphale doesn’t dare move a muscle or make a sound. 

At last, Crowley shakes his head. “No. I couldn’t.”

-

They have two days to quietly lose their sanity before Elena crashes back through the wards with the same abruptness that heralded her departure. Aziraphale has a scant handful of minutes to run out to the garden, extract Crowley from his madman culling of weeds that had not existed two days ago – weeds that sprang up in a deluge of nervous, demonic power – and explain the situation. By the time they race out to the clearing that has become the de facto car park, the Land Rover is already rolling into view.

The truck lurches to a halt in a belch of exhaust. Elena throws open the driver side door, dashes out, and wrenches open the passenger door without so much as a glance at her Uncle and Auntie. 

Adam Young slumps out of the passenger seat, threatening to crush the slight young woman as she reaches up to catch him. His complexion is waxen, slack; he looks more like a corpse than the forceful, compelling man of Elena’s vision. If he hadn’t had one foot in the grave when the Land Rover left London, he certainly does now.

Crowley is the first to recover from the shock of his arrival. He bolts toward the pair and helps Elena shoulder Adam’s weight, steadying his feet against the ground even as his head lolls forward. 

Elena looks from Crowley to Aziraphale, expression haggard. “Please, I need your help. I didn’t know where else to go.”


	8. unraveled, untethered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m Ineffablegame or Zingiberis on Tumblr.

For a long, strained moment, Aziraphale cannot think. 

Then, as Crowley and Elena hobble forward, Adam slumped between them, his lips move of their own accord. “Were you followed?”

His question is too soft amidst the mayhem, a parchment-scraped rasp of sound. Neither Crowley nor Elena seem to notice, entirely preoccupied with Adam. As they draw closer to the cottage, their pace agonizingly slow, the concentric circles of the wards shine like runnels of sunlight in Aziraphale’s mind. 

“Elena,” he says, loudly, sharply. Her head comes up, eyes wide. “Were you followed?”

“I—I don’t know,” she stammers. “It all happened so quickly, I—”

Before they can take another step, Aziraphale reaches out a hand. His fingers curl into a fist and the wards blaze bright behind his eyes. Every circle twists inward to spiral, tight and coiled, around the three. They halt, abruptly pinioned. Elena darts a frightened look down at her immobilized feet. Crowley’s confusion lasts only a moment before fury falls like a shadow across his face. He glares up at Aziraphale, jaw set. “What the Hell are you doing?”

“Come away from them, Crowley.” Aziraphale’s voice is hot, flame-wicked steel. He clenches his fist and the wards slither away from Crowley, making him stumble in their sudden absence. He rights himself and plants his feet, facing Aziraphale. Anger boils off him in waves. 

“Let them go,” he snarls. 

“No.” Power rises in Aziraphale’s chest, a leonine snarl threatening to build to a roar. It’s heady, after so many years of menial miracles, to let himself be swept away in the seductive rush of his true strength. “Do as I say, now. Get out of the way.”

“What are you planning to do?” Crowley demands. “Keep them frozen here forever?”

“I’m sending them _back. _They’ve nothing to do with us.”

“Nothing…” Crowley shakes his head. “Aziraphale, angel, _listen _to yourself. Elena is—”

“A human,” Aziraphale cuts in. “Nothing more.”

Shock wipes the anger from Crowley’s face. He looks stricken, genuinely _hurt, _and guilt crowds Aziraphale’s throat. Swallowing back the urge to apologize, he looks to Elena. Still frozen to the spot, she meets his gaze, shock and hurt plain in her eyes. The heady taste of his own power curdles into something like nausea.

“Crowley,” he begins, turning to him with a beseeching look, “I’m—”

“Don’t,” Crowley spits out, and the molten fury in his eyes silences Aziraphale. “Let them go. Now.”

Aziraphale unclenches his fist. As Elena gasps and struggles under Adam’s weight, as Crowley rushes to their side, he flees back into the cottage. He slams the front door behind him and stumbles through the sitting room, past his armchair, past the crate of books, past the hearth he has learned to light so well. He runs into the bedroom, closes the door, and leans against it. He stares down at his trembling hands as his vision blurs and swims. 

-

Hours pass before he finally gathers the courage to leave the bedroom. Night has fallen, and there is only the ruddy glow of the sitting room hearth to guide his way as he moves down the corridor. Voices float through the dark as he draws closer, hushed, night-soft murmurings. Footsteps willed silent, he enters the sitting room with the wariness of a hunted creature leaving its den. 

He feels Crowley’s gaze on him at once, but he doesn’t have the courage yet to face it. Instead, he looks to the figure lying prone on the sofa, insensible to the world. Adam Young is still alive, no doubt by Crowley’s intervention – his breathing is easy, his shirt miraculously clean of blood, and under the dancing firelight, his skin is no longer bone-white. Elena kneels at his side, expression haggard. 

“You healed him,” Aziraphale observes. He still doesn’t turn to look at Crowley, though he feels the heat of his stare burning into his back. 

“Yeah.” Crowley’s tone is flat and cold. “No thanks to you.”

Aziraphale does turn, then. “If you’d needed help, you might have come and found me. I wasn’t going anywhere.”

As he says it, he knows it to be true: he wanted Crowley to come find him. He wanted Crowley to follow him, even if they might have quarreled. Looking at him now – at the hard, amber-chip eyes, the rage barely held in check – he wishes they had. 

“No,” Crowley replies. “You wouldn’t, would you.”

“I would like to speak with you,” Aziraphale says. “In private.”

For a long moment, Crowley says nothing. He looks on the cusp of a sharp refusal. Then he unfolds from his seat and follows Aziraphale out of the room, tossing a parting, “Back in a tic,” over his shoulder. 

They leave through the front door, closing it quietly behind them. Unhampered by human limitations, Aziraphale can see perfectly well in the dark. Moonlight washes through breaks in the clouds above, painting the trees in swathes of silver and black. The night is still, absent of life; with the turn of autumn, all the insects have died and the birds have flown away. Everything is eerily silent.

Until Crowley reaches the end of his docility. “We’re not throwing them out.”

Aziraphale rounds on him. “You know they can’t stay here.”

“No, _you_ know that. Hell, you don’t even know it – you only _imagine _it.”

The acid lacing the word ‘imagine’ stings. Eyes narrowing, Aziraphale says, “It isn’t safe for them to be here. If Elena was followed—”

“The wards will keep them out,” Crowley interjects. “Isn’t that the point of them? Isn’t that why you’ve been reinforcing them, day in and day out, ever since we got here?”

“I—we can’t know they will.” Aziraphale hates the hysterical note in his voice, hates how it makes him sound ridiculous and paranoid. But he knows he’s right. “The humans have been advancing more and more every year. They might have developed new technology to slip past the wards.”

“If they haven’t come through yet, they can’t come through at all.”

“You’re being deliberately obtuse,” Aziraphale snaps. “They might not be able to get through. But they also might not have noticed us. Are you willing to find out which one it is?”

“Honestly? Yes. If it means some miniscule part of this miserable existence will change, I’m all for it. Bring on the humans, I say.”

Aziraphale glares at him. “Don’t be melodramatic.”

“At least I want things to change,” Crowley retorts. “What d’you want? To stay here until the world crashes down around our ears? Or until the humans really _do _work out how to get through? Because it’s one or the other, angel. Either way, we die waiting.”

“That…” Aziraphale flounders, bites his lip. “That isn’t necessarily true. Besides, if we’re careful, we’ll have more time to…”

“To what?” Crowley demands, voice rising to a ragged pitch. “Go on, to do what? Wait? Seems to me, if we’re waiting, we might as well _do something.” _He gestures wildly at the cottage.“The little viper needs our help. Adam Young needs our help. But you want to hide away and do nothing, and you don’t even know to what end.”

Aziraphale’s fraying restraint finally snaps. His own anger kindles in response to Crowley’s, and in a thrilling instant, the same leonine power that threatened to sweep him into its undertow only hours ago surges within him again. “I’m trying to keep you safe, Crowley!”

“I don’t want your protection!” Crowley spits out. “Not anymore, not if it means abandoning the people we love! People who love us!”

Aziraphale is trembling all over, trembling with power and a spiteful need to hurt just as much and he’s been hurt. “How can you ever imagine Elena loves us? Don’t you see her clearly? She’s a human, the same as all the others, the same as _Morgan.” _The name is sharp on his tongue, a flesh bloom of pain. He remembers Crowley miracling sweets into his pockets, the sunny, uncomplicated joy on Morgan’s face when Aziraphale begrudgingly offered them. That boy is gone, now; all that’s left of him is the hate that has twisted the rest of humanity beyond recognition.

Aziraphale pushes the thought aside and soldiers on. “Elena might visit us, accept your herbs, call you _Auntie, _but she was Newt’s daughter before she was anything to us. And Newt was killed by one of us.”

For a moment, Crowley’s mouth moves silently. He shakes his head. “She… she doesn’t blame us for that bastard’s actions. She knows better.”

“She hates it here,” Aziraphale counters, relentless. “Every time she visits, she’s forcing herself to do it. She doesn’t want to be here. She said it herself – she had nowhere else to go. To her, we’re little better than Gabriel.”

“There’s another thing,” Crowley says, seizing upon the only piece of driftwood in the rush of Aziraphale’s words, clinging to it like a raft. “You never let me go after him.”

Aziraphale scoffs. “For pity’s sake, Crowley, he would have destroyed you—”

_“Stop using me to justify your cowardice!”_

The shout shocks Aziraphale into silence. He stares at Crowley, unable to fathom a response.

At last, Crowley says, “You know, Aziraphale, I look at you now and—and. I don’t know who you are, anymore. You let your fear rule you, let it make you _cruel_. You would rather throw Adam and Elena to the dogs than stick your neck out for them.” He shakes his head, suddenly ancient and weary, every moment of his six-thousand years freighting his stare. “Don’t you remember the Garden? Don’t you remember giving Adam and Eve your sword, defying G—” He chokes and grimaces. “…Defying Her. You didn’t care about the rules, then, not really. You didn’t care that She could reach down and smite you without blinking. You just—disobeyed. Because it was the right thing to do.” A rueful smile, one that fails to reach his eyes. “That’s what first drew me to you, you know. That goodness. It was like a warm fire. I knew I could curl up beside it, warm my scales, and you wouldn’t burn me. You were good, and courageous, and I was helpless right from the start.” The smile vanishes. A gulf yawns between them. “And now, you’re… you’re cold. You’re so afraid of everything, you’d rather douse it, stomp out any spark before it can kindle. You’re not my angel anymore.”

Aziraphale opens his mouth, closes it. His throat is painfully tight. “Crowley.”

“Don’t—don’t.” Crowley turns his face away. “I can’t even look at you right now. I know you’ve been hurt, but so have I, and you never once considered that.” His words take on a terrible strain, each one threatening to splinter and crack apart. “Never thought about how terrified I was, hearing your voice screaming in my head that day. About how I felt when I went to you and found those humans—found them cutting you like that. And once I started killing them, I almost couldn’t stop myself. I wanted them all to suffer, to _bleed, _but you were hurt and you needed to be protected, so I thought—I thought, _if I can keep him safe, nothing else matters.” _He is quiet for a long, long moment. When he finally looks back at Aziraphale, his expression is cold and remote.

“I suppose,” he says at last, “I was wrong.”

His wings unfurl, black ink bleeding into the surrounding night. Understanding dawns and Aziraphale steps forward, heart hammering. “Wait. Crowley! What are you…?”

“I’m done,” Crowley says. His wings flap once, casting up dirt and blades of grass. “No more.”

Aziraphale’s thoughts are a welter of panic. He raises his hands to placate Crowley. “No—please—you can’t.” The plea comes out as an order, the only firm ground he can stand upon. “You can’t go. I won’t…”

“Won’t what? Let me?” Crowley demands. The fury radiating off of him takes on an incandescent, polluted gleam, and Aziraphale grits his teeth as infernal and ethereal power clash in battle. “Try and stop me.”

His wings beat the air and he crouches, intent on leaping into flight. Fear and power surge within Aziraphale, and before he can think twice, he is pressing the might of his power down on Crowley, keeping him firmly on the ground. Crowley’s eyes widen in surprise, then narrow with menace.

“Let me go, Aziraphale,” he snarls.

Aziraphale shakes his head. Every part of him is shaking, now, trembling fit to shatter into pieces. “No.” 

Crowley is silent for an instant, utterly still. Then he bares his teeth and throws up his hands, and the infernal power battering at Aziraphale takes on claws and teeth, a rending, animal ferocity. It’s a power Aziraphale has not faced since his first days out of the garden, when he and Crowley were still galvanized by their respective allegiances. He reacts on instinct, casting his hands up to seize a skein of heavenly power and bring it scything down on Crowley. 

Crowley staggers under the blow. Aziraphale watches, horrified, as he falls to his hands and knees. He relinquishes his grip on the power at once, but the damage is already done. The grass lays flat, cratered by the clash of their powers. The branches of nearby trees stand bare, their autumn leaves stripped away. The very pavement smolders beneath his feet. 

Aziraphale takes a step forward. “Crowley, I’m so…”

Crowley is on his feet in an instant, dark wings outstretched and hammering the air as he turns to flee. Aziraphale utters a wordless cry of dismay and stumbles after him, his own wings unfurling in his haste. Pain shoots down his spine in lightning bolts before biting deep into the humerus bone. He collapses, one wing flapping in frantic futility, the other curled protectively against his side. Gasping, fighting not to retch, he masters the pain and lifts his head.

The dark, starless sky hangs above him, vast and empty. Crowley is gone.

Crowley is gone, and Aziraphale is alone.

-

He first notices it a few hours after.

Something is happening to him, something… strange. Something wrong. A hollowness is creeping through him, as if he’s being severed from his body by increments. He sits on the bed, staring at his hands and waiting in vain for the hollowness to abate. It doesn’t; instead, it creeps up his fingertips, slowly but inexorably. Soon, it will seep over his palms and up his wrists, deadening the hands that wielded enough power to bring Crowley to his knees. 

Thinking on that, Aziraphale doesn’t mind the numbness so much. 

-

Hours later, Aziraphale is kneeling in the sitting room, staring down at his crate of books and sunk deep in thought. Alphabetical by author would be the simplest way to organize them, of course, but they are something of a hodge-podge, veering from classical to contemporary with a broad swath in between. There’s even a book on tax laws in Scotland in the 1860s, of all things. He can’t quite remember how that one got tossed in the crate during his frantic evacuation of the shop, all those years ago. 

“Aziraphale?” Elena asks, creeping over from the sofa. She’s dropped the ‘uncle’ moniker, he notes; he’s no longer family, not after his outburst at their arrival. “Where is Auntie?”

“Gone away,” he says, and there is an ocean between those two words and the emotion tethered to them. Alphabetical by genre, he thinks. It wouldn’t do to have that Scottish tax book sitting between _Dombey and Son _and _Middlemarch. _

“Gone away?” Elena repeats. “Gone where?”

“I haven’t the faintest, dear girl.” Aziraphale lifts a book from the crate and positions it with care. Perfect.

“When will he be back?” Elena asks, a note of fear stealing into her voice.

Aziraphale’s hand stills in the act of raising the next book. The numbness shivers down his nerves and into his fingers, deadening his grip. The book slips out of his hand to flap to the ground, pages splayed open like broken wings. Aziraphale stares down at the book as though from a vast distance. The touch memory of its cracked cover and tissue-thin pages dissolves, vanishes. 

“I don’t know,” he answers. “Never, I should think.”

Elena is motionless and silent for a long, long moment. Then she breathes, “Oh.”

Aziraphale fetches up the book and places it beside the other. As he aligns the spines, he takes each wayward emotion and sets them afloat to drift, unmoored, across the endless ocean. 

“I never noticed that shelf,” Elena notes, distantly. “It’s nice.”

“Thank you.” Aziraphale pulls the next book from the crate. A parting gift, he supposes, miracled into existence mere hours ago. “Crowley made it for me.”

-

It isn’t just the numbness – it’s a slow unravelling, as if the very threads anchoring his ethereal form to his body are coming undone. Aziraphale wanders through the cottage, taking in the surroundings he has known for so many years with new eyes. Crowley’s absence is a vacuum in every corner; it warps everything Aziraphale once found warm and comforting. Everything is woven in jagged, cruel strokes, a gouged tapestry of a hiding place. A bunker. 

A _prison._

Aziraphale goes to the bedroom at midday, heedless of Elena and Adam. He can think of little else to do. In his mind, the wards – once shining golden circlets, gleaming and sated on his power – begin to dim. He can’t dredge up the will to care. 

For a long, lung-frozen moment, Aziraphale stands on the threshold of the bedroom and stares inside. His silhouette cuts a shadow across the hardwood floor to slant over one corner of the mattress. Drawing a slow, bracing breath, he steps inside and closes the door behind him. He crosses the room and skates a palm over the rumpled sheets. The imprint is still there, and Aziraphale lets his eyes slide shut so he might conjure the body that made it. Night after night after night, for so many years, Crowley slept here. At his side, just within arm’s reach. 

Standing, Aziraphale climbs into the bed, careful not to disrupt the imprint. He curls onto his side behind it, hand ghosting over the divots and dents, and he imagines knobby ribs, elbows prone to prodding him in the night. He remembers gathering Crowley close, so close he could feel the curve of his spine against his chest. He remembers kissing the back of Crowley’s neck, memorizing the rough texture where the hair curled at his nape. 

Aziraphale must drift off, then, because his imaginings take on the vividness of dreams – and Crowley is there, curved against him, sleep-soft in spite of his knobby ribs and prodding elbows. His skin is warm as sun-touched stone against Aziraphale’s lips, and when he turns to face him, he is smiling and rumpled and sleepy.

He wakes, hours later, and finds the place beside him empty and cool.

-

The next morning, Elena taps lightly on the door. “Aziraphale? Aziraphale, are you awake? It’s Adam.”

He rises, stiff as an old man, and goes to the door. When he opens it, he finds Elena looking as weary and drawn as he feels. Bruises shadow her eyes and her dark hair has been pulled back in a haphazard bun. They might be mirrors of one another, if not for the cautious smile tugging at her lips.

“He’s awake,” she says. “Come see.”

Aziraphale follows her into the sitting room, more because she has a hand on his arm than because he wants to. Adam is seated on the sofa, eyes half-lidded. When the pair enter the room, he startles fully awake. The full force of his regard falls on them with a metaphysical weight. 

“Aziraphale,” he says. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“You look well,” Aziraphale replies, skirting around the subject of Adam’s last visit. If he thinks on Crowley’s frustration too long, his desperation for Adam to mend the world—_Stop it, you blighted fool. _“How are you feeling?”

“Not dead,” Adam says. “So. That’s something.”

“I daresay it’s a great deal _more _than something.”

Adam gives a weak chuckle. Elena releases Aziraphale’s elbow and crosses the room to perch beside him on the sofa. “How is your injury? D’you need the bandages changed?”

“I feel fine,” Adam insists. “Crowley sorted the worst of it. S’barely more than a scratch, now.”

Elena breathes a sigh and places a hand on his shoulder, squeezing meaningfully. Watching them, a bystander to something he never imagined, Aziraphale is alone and adrift. The fathomless ocean upon which he has abandoned his emotions to float, tethered but safely distant, trembles as if from a subterranean quake. Adam may have set aside his birthright as the Antichrist, but does that mean his powers are truly gone? Or have they been relegated to Tadfield, left to stand sentinel over the village while their master wanders the wider world, an Antichrist in name alone? 

An idea comes to Aziraphale as the ocean waves surge and leap. Adam summoned miracles of staggering power as a child, his mind submerged in fanciful notions of beasts and hidden worlds. At eleven, he had knitted impossibilities into the very fabric of the universe. The Kraken. The lost continent of Atlantis. Elvis Presley working as a fry cook in Des Moines, for pity’s sake. If Adam could do all that and more, what is to stop him from casting out his power and finding Crowley, bringing him back?

Aziraphale balls his hands into fists, fingernails biting into his palms. How could he even _think _such a thing? To drag Crowley back, thrashing and fighting all the way like a fish caught in a net? That would only humiliate him and deepen the divide between them.

“Aziraphale.” Elena’s voice – quiet though it is – pierces the fog of his thoughts. She bites her lip, gaze averted. “Do you—we can go, if you…”

Aziraphale considers the pair, battered and weary and only just beginning to recover. The words come to him unbidden, and he finds he doesn’t have the energy to fight them. “Stay or leave. It is entirely up to you.”

He turns and walks back to the bedroom without awaiting a reply. In his mind, the wards dull from gold to oxidized bronze. He doesn’t care, he _doesn’t care. _And what a fine thing that is, to finally find his sense of apathy when the being most precious to him has vanished. _A pity. Crowley would have found me very agreeable, this way. _

-

Days pass, though Aziraphale can’t guess how many. His concept of time, once slippery at best, has slithered out of his grasp altogether. He spends a few days in the bedroom, taking neither food nor water – gross matter he’s never _needed, _not really – and slowly wearing down the shape of his body in the mattress. Elena knocks on the door every so often, but he sends her away each time. After a few days, she stops knocking.

When he can no longer envision the shape of Crowley beside him, Aziraphale rises and leaves the bedroom at last. It’s dark, sometime deep in the night or hours before dawn, and the hollow reed-music of wind in the trees outside accompanies him as he walks about the cottage. In the kitchen, he finds a mug with a greenish pit of tea leaf scum at the bottom; Crowley’s, no doubt, abandoned before Aziraphale could chastise him to clean it. He sets it in the sink with steady hands.

He finds Adam and Elena still in the sitting room. Adam snores gently from a makeshift nest of quilts and pillows on the floor. Elena, lying on the sofa, turns in her sleep, her brow furrowing. Neither wakes as he passes. The door yields soundlessly under his hand and he steps out into the chill night.

As the door closes behind him, Aziraphale curves his arms around himself and tips his gaze up to the sky. He doesn’t know what he expects, if he wants to see the outline of black wings breaking through the starlight, if he wants to hear a familiar voice. Nothing happens. The night is a cold, silent tomb.

Hugging himself against the chill, Aziraphale turns and finds himself staring at the garden gate. Before he can lose his nerve, he reaches for the latch, lifts it. The garden earth is cold under his bare feet, a crust of frost having grown in Crowley’s absence. The garden was one miracle he kept, in spite of all Aziraphale’s fears. The air was always balmy, the soil always yielding up its bounty. Aziraphale casts out his senses, searching for budding green life. There is only the cold, and beneath that, a creeping decay. 

Aziraphale flicks his gaze across the dirt, skirting around certain places – around memories of hands pressing him down, and after, lifting him up. If he thinks too long on such things, he’ll start sinking and he won’t be able to surface again. The jewel-toned fruits of Eden are rotting on their vines. Aziraphale goes to them, places his hand on one. His fingers sink into the softening flesh, and when he draws away, the indentations remain. If not for the cold, he is certain the air would be swarming with flies.

A memory comes to him: of Crowley at his side, on the wall, smiling nervously as he tries to trade quips with his hereditary enemy. _Be funny if we both got it wrong, eh? Funny if I did the good thing and you did the bad one._

Perhaps it is the sense of numbness, of unravelling, but Aziraphale isn’t aware of what his hands are doing until they are stained wet with fermenting juice. The first of the Eden fruits lies on the ground, its heart ripped out, and pulp sticks between his fingers. Sweet putrefaction fills the cold air.

No sooner has he realized what he’s done than he is reaching for the trellis, tearing it down in a mighty surge of strength. The vines sag under the weight of their fruit, but before they can touch the ground, Aziraphale grips them and begins wrenching them apart. Fibrous tissues creak and rupture in splintering sprays. Crowley used to talk about the awareness of plants, how they would quaver before his wrath. Aziraphale wonders if they can feel pain as well as fear, and the thought gives him a vicious sort of satisfaction. He tears the vines, rips off the fruit and throws them to the dirt, but that isn’t enough, so he brings his foot down on them, stomping them into mangled pulp. When he can no longer tell the fruit from the earth, he turns to the rest of Crowley’s garden. 

-

Later, it will look as if a beast has been set loose to tear apart everything in its path. The earth will be gouged, the rotting fruits and withering vegetables crushed. The frames and trellises will all lie in ruins. The herbs Aziraphale will set aflame, and they will smolder and blacken like dying embers in a grate.

And, sitting in the midst of it all, Aziraphale will bury his fingers in the dirt and lower his head to weep. 

-

He returns to the bedroom with dirt under his fingernails and the vain hope that he might conjure the image of Crowley again, but the spot beside him on the bed remains cold and empty. Lying in the dark, Aziraphale closes his eyes and casts his thoughts out to wing through the distance separating them. He doesn’t know if it will work – scarcely dares hope – but, short of commandeering the Land Rover and driving into the great unknown, he can think of no other option. 

_Crowley? _he thinks. When no response comes, he shoves caution aside and tries to amplify the thought. _Crowley. Are you there?_

Silence, yawning and vast. Aziraphale feels as if he’s standing at an open window, shouting into an uninhabited wasteland. Perhaps he’s doing it wrong. Perhaps Crowley only heard him the once, when he was crazed with pain and terror. Phantom pains dart through the incorporeal bones of his wing. The scent of garden earth is sharp in his nostrils.

_I destroyed it, _he thinks. _Your garden. I destroyed all of it._

Outrage washes over him, startling in its suddenness. Crowley’s thoughts lash at his mind. _How could you?_

_There you are. I knew you were listening._

Crowley makes no reply, but a sullen anger simmers through their connection. Aziraphale waits, spring-coiled and spoiling for a fight. Long minutes pass in corrosive silence before he gives up and asks, _Where are you?_

Nothing. He can feel Crowley’s presence, the sharp sting of his wrath, but he is refusing to speak. Any moment now, he will sever the connection and disappear. Possibly forever. Aziraphale scrambles to order his thoughts, but they spill out of his hands as soon as he tries to gather them up, an incomprehensible jumble. He wants to say _I love you. _He wants to say _I miss you. _He wants to say _please, love, come back to me._

He begins, _Crowley, I—_

_I am going to find Gabriel. _

Aziraphale thinks his heart actually judders to a halt. The blood turns to ice in his veins. _What?_

_Gabriel. I’m going to find him._

_Crowley, you can’t—_

_And once I find him, I’m going to kill him. I’m going to cut that bastard apart like an animal. He’ll wish the humans had got him first._

The sheer hate pouring through the connection ties Aziraphale’s innards into knots. _You—you can’t, Crowley. Gabriel is an Archangel, he’ll destroy you, please, you mustn’t—my love, please come back to me—_

He reaches for Crowley, desperate to find out where he is, his willpower humming with the force of a new miracle. If Aziraphale can find him, he may be able to avert this suicide mission.

The connection between them snaps, a whip of recoil. Crowley has closed himself off, slammed shut the window between them. A hollow nothingness throbs behind Aziraphale’s ears in time with his heartbeat. 

-

Three days after Crowley severed the mental link, Adam and Elena haven’t left. Before, Aziraphale would have minded. He would have minded a great deal, and would have gone to extraordinary lengths to have them removed. It is only now – cavernous and dull in the aftermath of Crowley’s departure – that Aziraphale can understand how mad all of his rituals have been, the worshipful extent to which he has carried them out. 

For all of that, he can’t summon the energy to care. The fevered veil of the present blunts him to any looming threat, whether it be from Heaven or Hell or humanity. If Elena and Adam want to camp out in the cottage, he doesn’t care. If they leave to face the ruination of the outside world, he doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a fig for whatever they do.

And so, when he comes across them in the sitting room on the fourth day, he is surprised more at his own interest than at what he sees. 

It is early yet, with sunrise a mere suggestion on the horizon, the stars above just beginning to wink out of existence. Aziraphale has been drifting listlessly around the cottage, unable to settle. When he walks into the sitting room, Adam looks up with a guilty sort of haste. He is on his knees beside the sofa, hands shrinking back from the sleeping form of Elena. A blanket has been tucked around her and the dark, mussed strands of hair have been carefully combed back from her face. She is lost to the world, sleeping the slumber of one parched for the last dregs of their energy. 

Adam shutters his guilt and lifts a finger to his lips. Aziraphale flicks his eyes to the kitchen, to the front door beyond, and Adam nods. Silently, they go outside.

“You’re in love with her,” Aziraphale says, apropos of nothing.

Adam’s eyes widen for an instant before he averts his gaze and scuffs a toe in the dirt. It’s a childlike gesture, very nearly endearing. Nearly, but not quite. “I care about her. But that’s not really relevant, is it? Given everything going on.”

“I’ve not known you long,” Aziraphale says, “but you don’t strike me as the sort to prevaricate.”

Adam huffs out a self-deprecating laugh. “She’s too young for me.”

“She’s a grown woman.” Aziraphale is caught off-guard by the protective knife-edge in his own voice, but he presses onward. “If you’re going to dismiss her because of her age—”

“I wouldn’t,” Adam says immediately. “I’d never just… She’s one of my best friends, and greatest allies.”

“I see.” Aziraphale casts his gaze to the sky, realizing only at the last that he hopes for Crowley to appear, a dark bolt eager to dispense parental justice. “Whatever you two decide, you mustn’t hurt her. If you do…”

Adam musters another weary laugh. “God, I never thought I’d be getting this lecture from an angel. S’pose it’s better than hearing it from Crowley. He wouldn’t be nearly as kind as you.”

His tone is without spite, but Aziraphale feels the blow nonetheless. He sets his teeth and forces a stiff shrug. “Crowley is gone. What he would do is irrelevant. And I am far from kind.”

“Oh, I dunno,” Adam says, and he’s all of eleven years old again, scabby-kneed and frank and ignoring his birthright because the end of the world is going to get in the way of him and his friends playing witch-hunters in Hogback Wood. “None of those sound right to me.”

“You can’t simply ignore reality,” Aziraphale retorts, rankled. “If you aren’t going to use your powers to alter it, you have to learn to live in it.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing. It’s worked well for me so far.”

“You were _shot.”_

“Oh, yeah.” Adam shrugs. “Well, I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

_No guaranteeing for how long,_ Aziraphale thinks, but he keeps that ill omen locked behind his teeth. “What have you accomplished, anyway? If things have been working so _well.”_

“Oh, loads of things,” Adam says, unperturbed by Aziraphale’s derision. “The Them is stronger than ever, for starters. We’ve got support from all sorts of people in Parliament, and it’ll be even better when I’m Prime Minister.”

“Modest, aren’t you,” Aziraphale says dryly.

“Nah.” Adam grins, a quick, bright flash of teeth. “But I’m not stupid, either. Things were going really well before the rally. All the numbers say I’m going to get it.” Despite his rumpled appearance, despite the fresh bandages on his chest, he radiates a certainty with its own physical force. Aziraphale holds his ground, determined not to be set back, but it’s a near thing. “We’ve also been unifying for peace. That’s what the people want.”

_That_ breaks the dam of Aziraphale’s reserve. He scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous. If the humans really wanted peace, the Freedom Fighters—”

“Aren’t nearly as strong as they used to be,” Adam interrupts. “We’ve been ousting their supporters for years, now. All the people in Parliament have been coming to our side or leaving office. We nearly forced an election a couple years back, but a major member of the Cabinet still supported the war. Actually,” Adam says, his tone bright, “he’d left office just before the rally. It was all perfectly-timed.”

Aziraphale slants him an incredulous look, then rolls his eyes. “Quite. I’m sure _being shot_ won’t disrupt that timing at all.”

“It won’t. Pepper’s got it all sorted in my stead. We’ve perfected the system.” He smiles again, but this time it bears the first hint of strain, as if a great weight has descended upon it. “Even if… if something happens to me, there are others who can take my place. The war _will end, _Aziraphale. I’m sure of it.”

Aziraphale stares at him, the reproach turning to ash on his tongue. It should be ludicrous, _laughable, _that Adam truly believes what he says. That he may be able to bring it about. He thinks of Crowley’s faith in Adam’s cause, how he had dismissed it as folly. He had been so certain he was right, so set on waiting in the cottage until the world burned down around them. He was an angel, and yet—

“I don’t think I can believe you,” Aziraphale says, breaking the chain of his own thoughts. “It hurts too much.”

“I know,” Adam says, softly, his eyes trailing over Aziraphale’s back. As if he can see the invisible, ethereal scar. “I understand. But… once I’ve shown you it can happen, once it doesn’t hurt so much, maybe… well. I’ll need help.”

“Help?” Aziraphale echoes, stupidly.

“Yeah.” Adam shifts from foot to foot. “Help in the negotiations. With Heaven and Hell.”

The words are so nonsensical that, for an instant, Aziraphale cannot wrangle them into coherence. He repeats them slowly, mechanically, chewing each word down to gristle. “You want… to negotiate. With Heaven and Hell.”

“Yeah,” Adam repeats, automatically straightening his posture. Readying to meet opposition. “We have to learn how to cooperate with each other. This could be your world, too. It has been for six-thousand years.”

“You’ll never get the humans to agree to that,” Aziraphale says flatly. “They want us all dead.” Remembering Newt, the slaughter on the sand, he cannot wholly blame them. “It’s impossible.”

“It won’t be easy,” Adam admits, “but it’s not impossible. You and Crowley cared for Elena and her family for years. You’re proof that angels and demons can coexist with humans.”

Memories careen through Aziraphale’s mind in a dizzying storm. Sweets miracled into his pockets and snatched up by Morgan’s pudgy fingers. Elena and Crowley in the garden, heads bent over a new plant of Crowley’s making. Anathema sitting on the sofa, poring over one of Aziraphale’s books while Newt brings her a cup of tea. Newt bending over as he sets the cup by her elbow, pressing his lips to her temple. 

“I…” Aziraphale changes tack, desperate to shore up against the torrent. “It’s not possible. Even if you could convince Heaven and Hell to treat with you, I would be a pitiful excuse for a negotiator. I’m… I’m too afraid. And useless.” It’s softly-spoken, an admission of guilt, and he feels flayed open uttering it. He might have said such things to Crowley, who had known and loved him so dearly, but Adam is a stranger to him. 

“You’re not useless,” Adam says simply. “And there’s nothing wrong with being afraid.”

The frankness of his proclamation is a spark to tinder, and Aziraphale’s temper ignites with startling intensity. “You’re young. You don’t understand.”

“You just told me not to dismiss Elena based on her age,” Adam reminds him. “How is this so different?”

“This is—this is the fate of the _world!_” Aziraphale bursts out. “Humans and our kind can’t coexist. There would be no end to the fighting. We’re simply too different!”

“You and Crowley aren’t just ‘your kind’ though, are you?” Adam asks, undeterred. “You’re on your own side. And I think you can make a difference. Besides…” He trails off, gesturing to the cottage, the past beyond that, and six-thousand years beyond that. “We’re not so different. It would only take us a little time to learn that.”

Aziraphale makes no reply. His anger has smoldered down to embers, doused as quickly as it roared to life. He studies Adam, perplexed and frustrated by turns. A spark of hope gleams among the ashes, and he finds himself checking an automatic urge to stamp it out, stifle it before it can bloom. As they stand in silence, the sun creeps over the distant horizon, drifting out feathers of rose and dusty gold. 

Aziraphale begins to speak when a demonic presence bullets through the wards, crashing through each as though they are little more than rust-scoured shells. He whips around, scanning the sky as his heart knocks a frantic pulse in his throat, and swallows back the name even as it rises to his lips. The spark of hope blazes to life. _It can’t be._

Dark wings unfold from the dawn and a figure emerges, toppling out of the air to crash to the dirt. Aziraphale is running toward the crumpled form before he can think, mouth dry, vision swimming as tears threaten. As he draws closer, the figure shifts with a groan. The obsidian shroud of their wings falls away and Aziraphale draws up short, staring in shock. Beelzebub rises shakily to their feet. One of their wings fans out behind them, sleek and proud and darkly menacing. The other is a charred, stinking ruin, flaps of feather and tissue hanging from the bone like cooked fat on a joint of meat. Bile rises in Aziraphale’s throat.

Adam is the only one with the presence of mind to speak. “Beelzebub.”

The Prince of Hell gives Adam a withering look before turning their attention to Aziraphale. “You are the Principality, yeszz? Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale pushes his disgust aside and nods. He feels for the unreality of his flaming sword, finds it reassuringly close at hand. “I am.”

“I see.” Beelzebub takes a trembling step forward and collapses to the dirt with a choked cry of pain. Adam takes a step forward, but Aziraphale holds out a hand to halt him. Shuddering, spitting sizzling acid into the dirt, Beelzebub raises their head. “Gabriel sent me. Our forceszz have been annihilated. The humanszz are on their way.”


	9. wild world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for disturbing imagery and gore.

_-Six days ago-_

On the first day, Crowley revels in the simple joy of flight.

He can’t remember the last time he was so liberated – can’t remember when his wings last carried him so swiftly, bulleting him over the hills and trees of the South Downs like the shadow of a comet. Every moment is pure, windswept exhilaration, and he doesn’t bother strangling the urge to whoop and wheel as he flies northward. Toward civilization. Toward humanity. 

As Crowley charts his course with avian instinct, a memory floats to the surface of his mind: of flying at the hilltop, skirting the boundary of Aziraphale’s final ward. Listening to the angel’s fretting grow softer as the distance between them stretched – and then the sudden, choking gasp of pain as Aziraphale unfurled his wings and toppled to the ground. The leaden weight of guilt and shame filling Crowley’s belly, dragging him back to Earth. 

Crowley grits his teeth and shakes off the guilt. He had been thoughtless, yes. Possibly even cruel. But Aziraphale had shackled him to that cottage for thirty years, and would have kept him there until the world ended if he’d had his way. If the world is to end, Crowley wants to be out in it, basking in its dying glow before it all turns to ash. Better to properly _live _for a handful of days than to keep on in the stagnant, endless nothingness of the cottage, feeling his soul decay while his body lived on, impervious and hollow. 

Crowley is so immersed in his thoughts that, for a long while, he does not realize he is slowly turning east. At the outset of this journey, he’d had a vague notion of going back to London – to the blasted battlefield itself, see if his flat is somehow still standing – but now, another destination shines in his mind, its pull an insistent, heartstrung urge. He very nearly topples out of the air with shock, but it makes an impossible sort of sense. An ancient, serpentine part of him recalls sunlit branches, warmth on his scales. The fresh, ripe scent of apples. 

His mind is made up. Crowley hammers the air with his wingbeats as he turns east, intent on his new destination. If Adam Young won’t use his power to end the war, perhaps another can. And if he is to find Her anywhere on this poor, blighted planet, it is in the Garden. 

-

When Adam and Eve were banished from Eden, God decreed that no human could find or enter the Garden without Her blessing. The same is not true of angels and demons – as beings of ethereal stock, they all know where to find Eden. The Garden is a fixed point in Crowley’s soul, a cornerstone more vital than his flesh and bone and thrumming lifeblood. He needs only to _choose_to be there, and he knows where it is. The sensation is not unlike stretching a muscle stiff with six-thousand years of disuse. 

Standing in the baking heat of the desert sun, Crowley looks out upon the sand dunes as they slope toward the horizon. Blinding white cuts cleanly against the wild azure of the sky, and it is almost as if the world isn’t tearing itself apart out there. Almost as if no time has passed at all, as if he only just tempted Eve into her first sin. As if he only just slithered up the wall to bandy words with a nervy angel. 

A rustle of hot wind skates over the wall and Crowley turns, startled, half-expecting to find Aziraphale standing beside him in his shining robes. He isn’t, of course, no matter how the rapid drumbeat of Crowley’s heart tries to tell him otherwise. _Aziraphale isn’t here._

Crowley blinks past the halos seared into his vision and turns to drop like a stone into the Garden below. He wonders if other angels and demons have sheltered here – it would make sense, after all, to seek refuge in the one place on Earth humans cannot map. As he fans out his wings and lowers himself through the canopy of trees, however, no sentry sounds an alarm. No angel or demon rises from the foliage to accost him. The Garden is as lush as it was the day Crowley left it, so, so long ago. The trees stand tall, proud sentinels draped in thick mantles of leaves. Long, thick grass parts around his calves like water as he touches down and begins walking, his pace slow and aimless. The scent of budding growth, of flowers and pollen and the bitter tang of resin – the air is thick with it, and yet…

And yet, somehow, the Garden is all stillness and silence. 

“Is anybody there?” Crowley calls, dropping all pretense at caution. When no response comes, he raises his voice. “Hello? Anybody there?”

Nothing. His voice falls on dead air as his senses stretch and slither through every corner of the Garden, seeking in vain. Not a single creature still dwells here. No angels, no demons, no animals or birds or creeping insects. For all its splendor, the Garden is as lifeless as a crypt. 

“Is anyone…” Crowley trails off with a sigh. As he reaches out, finding nothing, a hollow place opens up behind his ribs. He knows, now, why Eden isn’t a base of operation. Why no angel or demon has set foot here, probably since Adam and Eve were banished.

The Almighty is gone. Echoes of Her vibrate in the very earth beneath Crowley’s feet, vibrations humming through the millennia, but they are simpering string notes beside the roaring symphony that is standing in Her presence.

“Where are You?” Crowley demands, voice rising to a shout. “Show Yourself!”

Nothing. Crowley looks around, half-hoping for the Almighty to step around a corner and annihilate him with Her light. When nothing happens, he storms through the tall grass, the silence a sudden spark lighting his fury to a roaring blaze. His wings slam at the air, uprooting blades of grass to send them flurrying all around. 

“Where are You?” he bellows. “This was all part of Your plan, was it? Letting the world die?”

He waits, but no response comes. A desert breeze whistles high overhead, a keening note of desolation. Crowley stalks through the Garden, his mind whirling with hopeless rage. He is standing at the base of the tree before he knows it, hands curled into fists at his sides. Apples hang from the boughs, ripe and red and taut with knowledge. He snatches one off the tree and hurls it at the trunk, growing in frustration when it merely bounces off the bark and rolls into the grass. 

“Was it worth it?” he shouts. “Being right? I meddled with Your little Garden, so, what? You let us avert Armageddon just so You can get back at me? Let me have him—” He chokes on the words, on the sudden lump in his throat. His vision swims as he glares at the tree. “You gave us time and then You took it away. You should have just let the world end with Adam Young.” He turns on his heel and stalks away, hurling the parting words over his shoulder, “Well. Better luck next time, I guess.”

That night, he shelters in a desert cave miles away from the walls around Eden. It’s more exposed, but he won’t sleep in the Garden. He turns on his side and draws his knees up to his chest, curling around his solitude. It’s spite, that’s what it is. Only spite.

-

On the morning of the second day, Crowley shakes the sand from his wings and flies back toward London. The flight itself is the work of mere hours because Crowley only expects it to take hours, and his imagination has never been fettered by geography. He soars high above the clouds, out of human sight. He hasn’t flown so high in centuries, but the exhilaration of flight is marred by the filth in the air. A smoggy grit permeates the clouds, filming over his feathers and fouling his lungs. 

When he folds in his wings and plunges through the cloud cover, a city is sprawled out beneath him. He narrows his eyes, cutting his gaze through the smog and smoke wafting up from the rubble, and picks out the serpentine scar of the Thames. Cold shock moves through him. _London._

Crowley flies through the lukewarm light, cloaking himself from human eyes with a thought as he draws closer to the city. London is barely recognizable. The city’s distinctive skyline is a gouged skeleton of what it once was. Power stations along the riverbank lay in ruins, and Crowley recalls the first letter Aziraphale received, how it bore tidings of Sandalphon’s grisly end. Was he pinioned and carved apart at that power station, or the next one? Every building bears the same marks of angel blades. Crowley turns toward Mayfair, relying more on instinct than concrete landmarks, and drifts down to alight on the pavement of a narrow alleyway. He hides his wings, drops the glamor, and steps out onto Grosvenor Street. 

Silence greets him. The lane is shrouded in shadowy gloom, lit only by the smoldering glow of a distant streetlamp. The few buildings that haven’t been blasted to rubble appear uninhabited, their rooms dark beyond drawn curtains. Tentatively, Crowley reaches out with his senses again, expecting the worst—but no. There are a few humans in the vicinity, cloistered away in their lightless flats. Hiding. 

Cleaving to the shadows, Crowley makes his way down the street. He miracles a pair of sunglasses into his pocket and draws them out, sliding them on with the ease of long practice. It’s… strange, wearing them after nearly thirty years without. He’d grown so accustomed to forgoing the sunglasses, especially after all Aziraphale’s pleading and wheedling and batting his lashes. Now, the world is a few shades darker.

He doesn’t find his old flat because the building where it was no longer exists. The entire thing has been reduced to rubble, ripped apart brick by overpriced brick. In fact, Crowley only recognizes it from the abandoned husk of the posh café across the street. Back before the war, before Armageddon, he’d made a habit to purchase a ridiculously-priced, frou-frou facsimile for coffee there every morning, because those were the sort of drinks the human he’d been pretending to be would drink. Or not drink, given that he only ever took a cursory sip before binning them. Doing his bit to help pollution and waste along. After a time, he’d ended up relinquishing most of those drinks to Aziraphale, who enjoyed them more than he ever could. The angel had been especially partial to those foamy caramel macchiatos—

_No._ Crowley seizes the thought, buries it down deep. _None of that, now._

He looks mournfully at the tarmac near the base of the rubble, where the barest depression offers a suggestion of a drive into an underground car park. Years and years ago, caught up in the terror of Aziraphale’s plight, he had given no thought to the Bentley when they fled London. Over the past three decades, his thoughts had flitted back to it, fearful birds that never dared land. He had known the likelihood of the Bentley surviving all this time, unprotected, untended—he’d known it was slim, but still he’d hoped—

“Bugger this,” Crowley mutters, scuffing the toe of one snakeskin shoe against the pocked tarmac. Wheeling around, he slants his hands into his trouser pockets and slinks away from the ruin. 

He walks eastward with no true intention but to _walk _until he’s left behind all memory of the Bentley. It’s a hopeless effort, he knows it is, but he walks and walks until he’s passing Regent Street and walking straight into Soho. He is standing before the charred remains of Aziraphale’s bookshop before he realizes it, standing and staring at crumbled bricks and splintered beams and ashes embedded in the pavement by thirty years of humanity’s trampling. 

For a long, still moment, Crowley can only stare. And then the ground seems to pitch beneath him and he is on his knees, bile filling his mouth as his empty, ill-used stomach twists. Aziraphale is screaming, thrashing under the net as the human sitting astride him yanks out his wing and lowers the ravening blade. The sound of _sawing _fills Crowley’s ears and he is gasping, choking, spitting up bile as his entire body convulses on a wave of horror. 

A clatter of stones striking pavement rattles the silence and Crowley leaps to his feet, whirling in the direction of the noise. A bony, mangy cat perches atop a pile of scree. Boldly, madly, he miracles a tin of cat food into his pocket and palms it. He locks gazes with the cat. Its eyes are a lambent green, wild terror reflecting back at him.

“Hullo,” he says quietly, and opens the tin. He holds out his hand.

The cat is off like a shot, darting into the bowels of the ruined bookshop before Crowley can so much as twitch. Cursing under his breath, he closes his fingers around the tin. And stops. 

“Oh,” he says after a beat. “Well. That makes sense.”

Black, gleaming scales scab up from his fingertips to his elbow. Darting a furtive look around, Crowley vanishes the scales and sets down the tin beside the pile of scree. He turns and slinks away without waiting for the cat to come back.

He doesn’t stay in London that night. Without the Bentley, the bookshop – without madcap drives at ninety miles-per-hour through central London and lazy evenings spilled onto the sofa in the back room of the shop, bottles in hand and wine-stained smiles exchanged – it no longer feels like home. 

-

On the third day, Crowley leaves London. Arrowing above the dark anvil of cloud cover, he charts a southward course, taking care not to dwell too long on his destination. If there is no solace to be found in the Garden or London, perhaps he should stop seeking it and look instead for vengeance. 

He resolutely does not look westward as the sea spills across the horizon, but he cannot deny the pull – the siren call of the South Downs, the cottage. _Come, _it seems to say. _Come back. It is safe here. Your beloved angel is here._

He beats his wings faster, desperate to outpace the call. If he gives into temptation – if he returns to Aziraphale – he knows he will never again be able to extricate himself. 

By the time Crowley arrives in Seaford, a clinging mist has shrouded the sky, gathering into needle-fine rain with his descent through the clouds. Droplets bead on his feathers and brow as he flies over brown-tiled rooves and angles toward the beach. White cliffs rear into view, their peaks wreathed in mist. All is muffled silence as Crowley lands on the beach, his heels sinking into sucking, saturated sand. Even the sea is quiet, as if the very tides have slowed. 

Crowley vanishes his wings in a spatter of raindrops and strides across the beach. His mind replays the horrible scene from Gabriel’s missive, all those years ago, every detail as sharp and slicing as a razorblade. Newt and Anathema’s family gathered on the beach, oblivious to the threat speeding toward them. Elena racing toward Morgan, dark hair billowing behind her. Scarlet soaking the sand.

Crowley stands on the spot where Gabriel killed Newt and grounds himself in the grief lingering there, a bulwark as immovable as the nearby cliff faces. If he can’t find Her and he can’t find home, he’ll settle for finding Gabriel and making an end of him. Aziraphale’s fears clamor up in his mind – _he is too strong, he is an Archangel, he will destroy you – _but Crowley strangles them, buries them beneath the mountain of his resolve. Gabriel must face justice for what he’s done, and while Crowley has never been a paragon of courage, he might just be bloody-minded enough to make it happen.

“Sissy, wait!”

Crowley startles at the voice, as quavering as it is. He turns to see a pair of children sprinting down the slope, one a few yards ahead of the other. Both girls, both scrawny and unkempt. The first – a little older, taller – clutches a string in one hand and a spool in the other. A ragged kite trails her, veering and juddering on the still air. Its green canvas is patched and worn. 

“Sissy!” the second girl wails. “Mum said—”

“Don’t be such a baby!” the older girl crows. She stops at the lip of the tide and throws the kite into the air. Without wind to guide it, the kite flops point-first into the wet sand. The girl scowls. 

“I’m _not!”_ the younger girl whines. 

“Baby,” the older girl mutters, but there’s no venom in it. She lifts the kite and shakes off wet clods of sand. “S’not working.”

“Oh.” The younger girl stops beside her, looking so crestfallen it makes something behind Crowley’s ribs ache. It’s a small miracle, a mere flick of his fingers, and a breeze careens across the beach. The older girl gasps as the kite is tugged from her fingers. She scrambles to seize the spool as the wind raises the kite higher, higher, straining at the end of the thread like a dog on a lead. The girls squeal with delight as Crowley commands the wind. The kite dances and wheels, a green banner in the mist. 

Crowley watches, and watches, and feels very alone.

-

Long after the children tire of their game and leave, Crowley sits on the beach, the sand soaking into his trousers as he hugs his knees to his chest. His resolve hangs in place by a fraying thread, each moment a moment closer to its inevitable _snap. _He is weary, lonely, and dammit, he _misses Aziraphale. _He had sworn to himself never to admit it, but he misses the angel – misses his softness, his warmth, the sunlight of his rare smiles. He misses holding Aziraphale. Being held.

_Crowley?_

For an instant, Crowley is frozen with shock. Then he looks up and around, half-expecting to find Aziraphale beside him. But the beach remains empty. Just when Crowley is going to dismiss the voice as a fantasy, it comes again: louder, more insistent. _Crowley. Are you there?_

It _is _Aziraphale, he realizes, speaking to him across the vast distance through that unnatural link in their minds. The same way he called to Crowley when the humans were attacking him. For an instant, Crowley is sorely tempted to answer, to stretch across the space and let Aziraphale’s voice envelope him. He resists with no small effort.

After a long moment of silence, Aziraphale’s voice returns. _I destroyed it. Your garden. I destroyed all of it._

Shock immerses Crowley, so cold it knocks the breath from his lungs. Rage follows fast on its heels, and the thread holding his resolve finally breaks. 

_How could you? _he thinks viciously. 

_There you are. I knew you were listening._

Crowley seizes control of himself by the ends of his fingernails and swallows a scathing retort, though he’s certain Aziraphale can feel his fury bubbling through the link. His garden, his beloved garden. The plants he had nurtured for nigh-on thirty years, every single seed nourished on his power and his love and his sanity. The sudden pain of its loss throbs like a severed limb.

_Where are you? _Aziraphale asks.

Crowley makes no reply. He wants to say _I can’t believe you destroyed my garden. _He wants to say _I watched a pair of children playing on the beach today and I wish you could have seen it, you would have loved it. _He wants to say _I miss you, angel._

He says nothing. Silence whistles across the link like air through an open window, and his fingers itch to slam it shut. 

_Crowley, _Aziraphale begins, _I—_

_I’m going to find Gabriel, _Crowley thinks, surprising himself.

_What?_

_Gabriel, _he repeats, soldiering on, _I’m going to find him._

Panic edges into Aziraphale’s thoughts, bleeding across the link to permeate Crowley’s mind. _Crowley, you can’t—_

_And once I find him, _Crowley continues, _I’m going to kill him. I’m going to cut that bastard apart like an animal. He’ll wish the humans had got him first._

_You—you can’t, Crowley. _Aziraphale’s voice is raw with terror, and that, _that _is something Crowley can contend with. Something he can despise._ Gabriel is an Archangel, he’ll destroy you, please, you mustn’t—my love, please come back to me—_

Those words – _my love – _cut through Crowley like a well-honed blade. Shaken, he breaks off the link between them with all the ferocity he can muster. Hollowness rushes into the place in his head where Aziraphale once dwelled. Crowley hugs his arms around himself, buries his face in his knees, and waits for _my love _to stop echoing through the silence. 

-

In spite of the memories steeping the sand, Crowley can’t get a read on Gabriel’s location from the beach. He leaves Seaford, discouraged but far from resigned. Perhaps he’s being too clever, too sly. Heaven and Hell are hobbled by their own lack of imagination – that’s why the humans have fared so well against them. Gabriel probably doesn’t remember murdering Newt, much less the name of the town where he carried out the deed. If Crowley wants to find an Archangel, he needs only look in the obvious place. 

And, in a war between humanity and the forces of Heaven and Hell, the obvious place for an angel to be is on the battlefield.

And so, on the fourth day, Crowley looks for the telltale signs of carnage. He flies back toward London, senses extended as far as they will reach, seeking the barest hint of trouble. As a demon, he has a preternatural awareness of all the vile emotions that make a war: of the hate, the fear, the willing blindness, the horror. His thoughts call out for a horseman astride a red bike, the scarlet whip of her hair trailing behind her as she speeds over broken asphalt, a shark scenting blood in the water. 

But for all Crowley’s efforts, it takes most of the day before he finds his quarry. By then, it is far too late.

His avian senses are the first to tip him off – the flurry of a gathering flock, the mind-whirring frenzy of bloodlust. He folds in his wings and plunges through the cloud cover.

An inferno greets him. For an instant, Crowley almost drops from the sky in shock; the déjà vu is nauseating, and a cold sweat breaks out across his entire body. He catches himself just as gravity begins to grip his innards, wheeling away from the hellish vision below. Forcing himself to take steadying breaths, he ignores the memories of Falling and tries to make sense of the flames.

The fire is immense, stretching across half the length of a field and piled several feet high with kindling. Clouds of smoke billow up from the flames to blacken the sky. Crowley shifts to avoid a murder of crows as they careen through the smoke, their raucous voices deafening. Perplexed, he flies lower. Figures sharpen into focus, milling about the edges of the flames with brisk efficiency. Humans. As he draws closer, Crowley makes out a pair of men lumbering toward the fire, carrying a large burden between them. A log, kindling, perhaps, or—

Horror grips Crowley’s heart as the humans come closer to the fire. The glow of the flames picks out details he had missed before. What they carry between them is no log – it has a face, battered and slack, and limbs that flop and drag as the humans struggle with its weight. It’s a body. The body of a demon, a crimson slash across its neck attesting to its final moments of life. 

Grim understanding dawns and Crowley draws closer, staring into the flames. All at once, the stink hits him, a blow so visceral it turns his stomach. Burning meat, scorched hair, crisping feathers. This is no battle – this is the aftermath. This is a pyre.

“There’s another one!” a voice calls. “Over there!”

Crowley whips around just in time to see a net hurtling toward him. He ducks too slowly and the net snares around his right wing and torso. Hooks dig into his flesh and he gasps with pain. The mesh of the net thrums with uncanny power and he sinks from the sky, left wing flapping feebly as the energy is leeched out of him. He lands hard in the dirt, thrashing and twisting and spitting like a feral cat. Four humans converge on him before he can claw his way to his knees. They stand around him, all armed with ravening blades. The firelight flickers lurid and red on their sweaty, dirty faces, their hate-filled eyes. 

“How’d it escape?” one mutters.

“Doesn’t matter,” a burly man spits out. He nudges a tall, thin woman beside him with a sporting grin. “Go on, then. Kill it. I know you ‘aven’t, yet.”

“Shut it,” the woman snaps, instantly defensive. She lifts her blade in a trembling hand and advances a step. Crowley shrinks back on his bottom, his free wing flapping weakly. White spots spread like mold across his vision; he’s suddenly so _tired, _so lightheaded. He sets his teeth and shakes himself awake. _Don’t black out. Don’t you fucking black out. If you do, you’ll never wake up again._

The other two humans jeer at the woman with easy schoolyard malice. They think this is all a game, a rite of passage for new initiates. Crowley threads his fingers through the mesh and tries to tear it away. Bolts of pain sear up his arm and he winces. 

“Hurry up,” the burly man growls. “Before it tries to fight back.”

“I’m _doing it,” _the woman retorts, bristling. She comes closer and Crowley sees fear mingled with hatred in her eyes – and the hard set of her jaw as she braces herself. She raises her blade and Crowley, heart thundering, snaps his fingers.

The net is draining him, making him weaker with each passing second, but still Crowley has enough power and enough imagination to wield it. The miracle threatens to slip through his fingers, but at the last, he channels it. Flames roar out of the pyre to lash the humans, scalding whips driving them back as embers alight on the net. The mesh begins to smolder and he goads the fire on, feeding the dregs of his power in to make the flames hotter, hungrier. As the humans advance, undeterred, Crowley grits his teeth and grips the burning mesh. The agony is instant, a soul-deep _draining, _but at last he rips the abominable hooks out and hurls the net aside. Sobbing, shoulders heaving, he forces his wings to beat.

“It’s getting away!”

“Catch it!”

Crowley leaps into the air, but he’s so tired, so _weak,_and how did Aziraphale manage to stay conscious when the humans caught him? It’s been less than a minute and Crowley feels faint with exhaustion. His ascent is too slowand a yelp wrenches out of him as a weight clamps around his foot and drags him back down. His wings slam harder, dislodging loosened feathers, and he scrabbles for the smoke-filled sky as he is borne inexorably down to the ground. 

“Its wings!” one human bellows. “Grab its wings!”

An incoherent sob of terror rips out of Crowley’s throat as hands grip his wings and yank them out. He is bullied down to his hands and knees, two humans standing guard as the other two hold him still. His fingers sink into the earth, dirt and ash and the debris of battle digging into his palms. The tall, thin woman steps forward with her blade.

A gunshot roars through the air and the woman startles as her hand evaporates in a red mist. She drops to her knees, blade falling to the dirt as she grips her wrist and screams and screams. The humans release Crowley to whirl around in the direction of the shot. 

A woman strides through the billowing smoke, a double-barrel shotgun braced against her shoulder. Other humans flank her, identical shotguns poised at the ready. Crowley takes one look at the woman’s steely, dark eyes and the mass of coiling black hair scraped back from her face and shock strikes like a punch to the belly. 

“Pepper,” he says, voice hoarse.

“Stand down,” Pepper barks. One Freedom Fighter twitches his hand toward his side and she rolls her eyes, aggrieved. “Please spare me the bullshit macho-posturing. I’m _not_in the mood for it.” She raises the shotgun in a pointed manner. “Next person who raises a weapon gets their guts blown out. I—oh, for the Antichrist’s sake, can you shut her up?”

The woman is still screaming, clutching the bleeding stump of her arm. At a sharp command from Pepper, her comrades fan out to subdue the remaining Freedom Fighters. Terror grips Crowley as one gives him a considering look, though his aim doesn’t waver from his charge. Eyes darting toward Pepper, he calls out, “Ma’am…”

Pepper’s gaze snaps to Crowley like a physical force. Crowley flinches back as every logical thought in his mind is submerged in a frigid wave of fear. Shivering in every atom of his being, he scrambles to his feet. The world careens on its axis but he spreads his wings and jumps into the air, fear lending strength to his flight. Everything – the humans, the pyre, the screaming cloud of crows – shrinks into insignificance as he rises and rises, climbing until the air rasps blade-thin in his lungs. 

Crowley flies as fast as his weary wings can carry him, but while he may outrun the humans and the raucous screams of crows, he cannot outrun the stink of the pyre. Of meat, carved and thrown to the flames to cook. 

-

For all of the fifth day, Crowley cannot settle. For hours he limps through the sky, each wingbeat one lurch away from dropping him like a stone. The net has left him a hollow, brittle creature, as likely as anything to shatter to pieces if he touches ground. As the sun moves across the sky, its light pallid on his feathers, he slowly recovers his strength. But the fear remains.

For all of the fifth day, Crowley soars high above the world, unable to dip beneath the clouds in spite of his best efforts. He can’t shake the feeling of hands on his wings as the humans dragged them taut for the ravening blade. The wounds where he ripped out the hooks weep and ache, refusing to heal under his power, and that aberration in itself shakes him to his core. He should be better than this. He should be _stronger. _He had known the threat the humans posed, of course, but—but never had he believed it would touch him. 

Crowley winces at his own stupid naïveté. Somehow, after nearly thirty years of living in the cottage, he had grown to think himself immune to the fate that had befallen so many angels and demons. There had been no room for it, not with Aziraphale’s fear crowding out everything else. 

_You believed him a coward,_ an insidious voice whispers in his mind, a voice that may very well be the conscience all demons like to think long-dead. _Not at first, maybe. But as the years passed and your resentment grew, you began to belittle him. Even when you claimed to love him, you scorned him._

Crowley grits his teeth and tries to bury the voice, but it’s a doomed effort. He might as well try to pluck the sun from the sky. 

As dusk falls and the moon rises, he finally ducks beneath the clouds. Rain lashes him as he flies over craggy cliffs and above dark, fathomless waters. His senses place him somewhere off the northwest coast of Scotland. He flies over the Sea of the Hebrides until he comes to a small spit of land, barely big enough to be called an island. The sea crashes against the sharp rocks all around, and there is no visible port of entry. With a flick of his fingers, Crowley commands a cave to rise from the cold, wet stone. He alights and folds himself inside, wings curved around himself for warmth.

“I could stay here,” he murmurs to himself, and laughs with the absurdity of it, because the notion is far more tempting than it ought to be. “I could stay here forever.”

He watches the rainfall until he drifts into a fitful, lonely void between sleep and waking. 

-

On the sixth day, Crowley wakes to a jolt of surprise. Startling, he bangs his head on the top of his tiny cave and lets loose a colorful curse. As he rubs his skull, the realization dawns: it came through his link with Aziraphale.

_What was that? _he demands, blearily unthinking. 

Aziraphale does not respond. The link between them cuts off with jarring suddenness. Crowley waits, listening as waves crash against the crags of his little island outside. Nothing.

_Fine, _Crowley thinks sullenly, and peers outside. The early hours of the day have passed; the sun is a hazy disc overhead, shining its anemic light through the sea mist. Crowley extricates himself from the cave and stands, grimacing as his joints stretch and pop. Feeling more like a demon and less like a cramped jumble of sticks, he looks at the cave. Looks out to the open sea. The fear from the day before hasn’t lessened – if anything, the urge to crawl back into the cave and seal himself inside for the rest of time is stronger than ever. But he swore he would find Gabriel and make an end of him, and that’s what he’s going to do. 

If he dies in the confrontation, well… that’s just that, isn’t it. He’ll be gone, and the world will grind on toward its inevitable destruction like it’s been doing for three decades. And if, somehow, Gabriel doesn’t manage to kill him… the cave is here.

_Aziraphale will miss you, _the insidious voice of his conscience murmurs. 

“Shut it,” Crowley mutters, and leaps back into the air.

-

Later, Crowley won’t have the presence of mind to wonder how he found them. Later, too muddled with panic, he will scarcely be able to order his thoughts coherently, much less trace the steps it took him to come to his destination. He will only know to thank and rue Someone that he had the time to see everything burn down to ashes.

Through the afternoon and toward dusk, Crowley flies above the clouds, his senses stretched out for any hint of ethereal or infernal power he can find. When the sun sinks beyond the horizon and his search has proved fruitless, he dips cautiously below the clouds. A forest stretches out beneath him, an austere canvas of trees wasted and brittle with the autumn chill. 

All but one. One tree remains vividly green, a beacon amid shades of brown and grey. Frowning, Crowley glides down toward the tree. It’s not even an evergreen; it’s a beech tree, if his horticulturist eye is right. He folds himself through the foliage and lands on a stout branch, setting a palm to the trunk to steady himself. 

“What are you all about, then?” he muses aloud.

Voices splinter his disquiet, making him tense. He looks down, down to the distant gnarled roots. A cluster of humans stand near the base of the tree, immersed in intense debate. 

“…said he would bring us there. And now he’s losing his nerve.”

“Should we even bother? The Them are onto us. Soon, they’ll find us, and—”

“If you’re about to suggest we turn ourselves in, you can bloody well fuck off.”

Crowley descends soundlessly to a lower branch, straining to better hear their conversation. Four humans stand below him and more are further off, attending to a ramshackle campsite. Two of the four humans are unknown to him, but one is vaguely familiar, and the last…

Crowley’s fingers bite into the gnarled bark. The fourth human standing below him is Morgan Pulsifer-Device. It’s been years since Crowley last saw him, but there’s no mistaking it – not those brown eyes, that mussed hair. The glasses perched on the end of his nose, magnifying the shadows beneath his eyes. The years have made him taller, but he hasn’t put on much weight, so he looks more stretched and gaunt than _grown. _For all of that, he painfully resembles Newt. 

“We can still make a mark on them,” the vaguely-familiar young man says. He’s of an age with Morgan, Crowley guesses. “We nearly killed the Prince of Hell. If we find it, we can, at the very least, finish the job.”

“If _someone _will grow a spine and take us there,” a larger man growls, “we would be happy to.”

Morgan looks at the ground, abashed. “I… I don’t…”

“Give us a minute,” the familiar young man says. After a tense moment, the larger man relents with a huff and stalks off toward the camp. His companion – a middle-aged woman – follows, but only after shooting a dark glare at Morgan. Once the two are gone, the young man grips Morgan by the shoulders and looks him in the eye. “You want to avenge your dad, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Morgan says. “But—but I don’t see how…”

“It’s an angel,” the young man says, and recognition clicks: it’s _Tom, _Morgan’s friend whose father was a Freedom Fighter. Tom, who stood on the beach at Seaford and watched alongside Morgan, Elena, and Anathema as Gabriel murdered Newt. “Just like the rest of them.”

Morgan bows his head, as if seeking answers in the dust at his feet. “But… but, he—”

“It.” The word is hard in Tom’s mouth, a stone of a sound. A reminder. “It’s only an angel. A _thing.”_

“Tom…”

“Listen.” Tom draws Morgan close, so close their noses nearly touch. “You’re the only one who can do this. The only one who can lead us there. We’ve tried for years, you know that, and we’ve never managed. But now that we’ve got you, we can finally do it.”

“Right,” Morgan says, but he still looks conflicted. He loves Tom, Crowley realizes with a lurch; the air is ripe with love and conflicted wanting, bottled by a broken stopper. Morgan will do anything for him.

“You can do this,” Tom says with a conspiratorial grin. “Imagine it. We’d finally bring down a Prince of Hell, and it would all be because of you.”

“Right,” Morgan repeats, forcing a smile.

“And not only that,” Tom adds, “but a powerful angel besides.”

“Yeah.” Morgan’s voice is softer this time, less certain, but Tom doesn’t seem to notice. Clapping a hand to the side of Morgan’s face, he tilts their foreheads together before drawing back. 

“So, you’ll do it?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“I’m proud of you, mate,” Tom says. “Your dad would be, too.”

He strides off toward the camp, leaving Morgan alone at the base of the tree.

-

Crowley remains in the tree late into the night, long after the Freedom Fighters have packed up their camp and gone. There is something strangely comforting about the broad trunk, the limbs that stretch around him like the immense arms of an embrace. As stars wink through the cloud cover, he turns over the possibilities of what he heard. 

The Freedom Fighters are on Beelzebub’s trail, which means they are probably on Gabriel’s trail, too. That must be the powerful angel Tom referred to. Surely there can be no other, not with the remaining Archangels dead. Crowley’s thoughts take wing, flitting over the upper spheres of the angel hierarchy with the soothing rhythm of a lullaby: 

_In the First Sphere are the burning Seraphim, the guardian Cherubim, the elder Thrones,_

_In the Second are the lordly Dominions, the mighty Virtues, and Powers’ celestial bones… _

_Cherubim._ The word sticks in Crowley’s mind like a thorn. He furrows his brow, combing through his memories for its relevance. His lips move, forming the ancient words: “After sending them out, the L—She stationed mighty cherubim to the east of the Garden of Eden. And She placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.”

And even as the holy words burn his throat, Crowley knows. Knows with a terrifying, marrow-deep certainty who the powerful angel the Freedom Fighters seek to destroy is. It’s not Gabriel at all—no, it’s an angel only Morgan can lead them to. Only Morgan, because he and his family were allowed to pass the wards. Only Morgan, because he was once friend and kin to the angel he will help his comrades murder. 

Crowley sits bolt upright, heart slamming against the cage of his ribs. He seeks out the link and wrenches it open. _Aziraphale. Aziraphale! Are you there?_

Nothing. The other end of the link is silent. Fighting his mounting panic, Crowley throws a volley of pure, infernal power against the link. _Aziraphale! _

The link yields, and from the other end pours a torrent of terror so potent it sets Crowley aback. Aziraphale’s thoughts are a welter of _Adam Elena humans nets blades fire fire burning _and Crowley is very nearly crippled by the force of it. Clinging to his sanity, he bellows Aziraphale’s name through the link. 

The noise cuts off as Aziraphale’s voice fills his mind, a threadbare sound. _Crowley?_

_Aziraphale! _Crowley thinks. _You have to run, the humans are—_

_Stay away. _Aziraphale’s tone is all steel. _Crowley. Swear to me you will stay away._

_What—Aziraphale, wait!_

_They’re here. _A shiver runs down Crowley’s spine, born of his own fear or Aziraphale’s, he has no idea. And then Aziraphale’s voice rings through the link, and it’s all Crowley’s fear, crowding into his throat and choking off any protest he might try to raise. 

_Goodbye, my dear one, _Aziraphale says. And then he severs the link.

-

In the dark, early hours of the seventh morning, Crowley flies faster than he can ever remember flying. His wings ache from the net hooks, but he doesn’t care one whit for that. Bitter winds pummel him as he arcs toward the South Downs. As he speeds toward the cottage, he bellows Aziraphale’s name into the link, a plea, but he might as well be shouting into the void of the cosmos. Aziraphale does not heed him. For all he knows, the angel may already be gone.

Crowley beats his wings harder, spurred on by the thought. But no sooner has the familiar tree line leading to the cottage risen into sight than an immovable barrier knocks him from the sky with enough force to drive the air from his chest. Crowley rights himself before he hits the ground, but it’s a near thing. Panting, frantic, he closes his eyes and casts out his senses. Aziraphale’s wards stand before him – a shell of their former, shining glory, but still strong enough to repel him. 

_He meant it, _Crowley thinks, distantly, _when he told me to stay away._

“Aziraphale!” he screams. “Aziraphale, you idiot, let me—”

He sees it, then: the smoke, twisting up from the trees, a black pillar of doom. Crowley’s heart races fit to leap into his throat. He thinks of the pyre, of the bookshop in Soho. The smoke billows and smears in the slate-grey sky, and he needs no more confirmation when a stray breeze brings upon it the faintest whiff of brimstone.

_Hellfire._


	10. wrath and flame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: violence.

_-One Day Ago-_

They move Beelzebub inside the cottage for a lack of anything better to do. The Prince of Hell sprawls on the sofa, good wing folded protectively against their side while the injured one spreads out at a grotesque angle on the floor. Aziraphale swallows and leans down to inspect the wing with careful hands, but Beelzebub winces away at the first brush of his fingers, baring their teeth in a surprising show of menace. 

Aziraphale draws back his hands. After a moment, he pushes himself upright. “Please wait here,” he says at last, lamely, and hurries out before Beelzebub can respond. 

He finds Adam and Elena standing just outside the front door, heads bent in quiet conversation. “You two should go,” he says without preamble. “Before the humans arrive. My wards should hold, but if… if they’ve found a way to break through, I won’t be much good to you. Hurry, while there’s still time.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” says Adam, flatly.

“My boy—”

“We don’t know how close the Freedom Fighters are,” Elena adds. “We could try to flee and run right into their path.”

Aziraphale shakes his head, batting away her flimsy logic. “You don’t _know_ that you will, and the longer you wait, the more likely you are to be trapped. If you go now, you might just avoid them.”

“Aziraphale,” Elena says, raising her chin, “we’ve made up our minds.” Her expression softens, just for a moment. “Please. We want to stay.”

Aziraphale looks from Elena to Adam and feels his resolve begin to waver. A part of him wants to send them away, miracle them out of the South Downs and damn the consequences – but another part, at once weaker and stronger and irredeemably more selfish, refuses to let him face the oncoming threat alone. 

_Forgive me, Crowley,_ he thinks.

“Suit yourselves,” he says, and stalks back inside.

He finds Beelzebub exactly where he left them: groaning and writhing on the sofa. Their wounded wing twitches every now and again, and Aziraphale feels his gorge rise at the sight of the ruined tissue, the exposed bone. In close quarters, the stink of charred feathers and flesh is confined, and his empty belly performs a sickening flip. He pushes past the nausea to a place of cold determination. There is nothing to be done for it; he reaches into the pocket between realities and draws out the flaming sword. Heavenly fire is death to demons, but if he is very careful… 

As he approaches, Beelzebub shudders out of glassy-eyed agony to snarl at him. “Get away from me.”

“Oh, shut up,” Aziraphale snaps, and the venom in his tone startles the Prince of Hell into silence. “That wing needs to be tended, and I’m afraid the only way to do that is to remove the dead tissue and cauterize it.” A twinge of incorporeal pain darts down his spine and he softens, just a little. “If the damage wasn’t done by the ravening blades, tell me now. Otherwise, you know our power can’t heal it.”

Beelzebub presses their lips into a thin line. “I know.”

“Very well.” Aziraphale wills the flaming sword to burn brighter, hotter. “Would you prefer to be unconscious? I can arrange that, at the very least.”

Beelzebub is silent for so long, Aziraphale wonders if they are slipping back into insensibility. At last, they say, “I believed you soft. Gabriel said you were spinelesszz.” They consider him for a beat, taking his measure with a flinty stare. “I see he waszz wrong.”

A dozen replies clamor onto Aziraphale’s tongue – _no, Gabriel was correct, I am a weakling, I am spineless, useless, worthless – _but he only says, “Pick your poison, my lord.”

“Awake.” Beelzebub sinks their fingers into the sofa upholstery as Aziraphale kneels beside the mangled wing, and if their words are taut with terror, he pretends to take no notice. “I will be the wiszzer for it.”

“Very well.” 

For a long time after that – far too long, though it can scarcely be more than a handful of minutes – the sound of screaming fills the cottage. It is loud enough to carry to Adam and Elena outside, but fortunately, they have the good sense not to come looking for the source. Precious few seconds pass before Beelzebub begins tearing the upholstery in their agony, but it takes longer for the pain to render them unconscious. Far longer. By the time they finally slip into merciful silence, the sofa cushion beneath them is in shreds, the stench of scorched meat is a fug in the air, and a sheen of sweat covers Aziraphale’s entire body. He miracles the mess away and drops the sword back into unreality before stumbling upright and staggering out of the cottage. 

He barely makes it past the garden gate before he is on his knees, retching bile into the dirt. Elena’s voice permeates the dizzy haze of his mind as a hand settles on his shoulder. “Aziraphale! Are you alright?”

Aziraphale wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. “I’ll manage, dear girl.”

“Okay,” she says, voice small. And then, much to Aziraphale’s surprise, she kneels and wraps her arms around him. The embrace is swift, sudden, and gone before he can react. Elena stands and wipes dirt from her knees. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

And she’s off, striding back toward Adam with a briskness that brooks no more sentimentality. Aziraphale watches her retreating form with a detached sort of surprise. The numbness clouding his senses is far from banished, but it has abated. He is a wire stripped bare in its absence.

-

Beelzebub is insensible for hours. For a time, Aziraphale wonders if the injury will kill them. He cauterized the wound as cleanly as possible, cutting away only what was dead or irreparably damaged. The margins left behind are optimistic, it’s true – perhaps too optimistic. Angels and demons are resilient against infection, their corporations tailored to last, but serious wounds may still fester. Usually, healing corruption would be the work of a trifling miracle, but of course these circumstances are different. An infection sustained from a ravening blade is as resistant to miracles as the carvings themselves. 

However, as the sun climbs to its zenith, Beelzebub seems to find their wits. They rouse and accept a trickle of water from Aziraphale’s proffered cup. Lying back, their hands rub unconscious circles over their stomach, as if to quell wave after wave of nausea. 

“You should run,” they say after a lengthy silence. “Why haven’t you run?”

The reply is out of Aziraphale’s mouth before he can give it a second thought. “Because there’s no point.” He bites off the last word, annoyed with himself for being so candid. “If my wards can’t hold the humans back, nothing will. No place will be safe.”

“The world iszz dying,” Beelzebub says quietly. “But you aren’t the sort to stand by and let it.”

_You don’t know what sort I am,_ Aziraphale thinks. He remembers the stifling air of Hell, the screams and squeals of demons as they fogged the glass with their fetid breaths. The crusted porcelain of the bath. 

His mind leaps from past to present. “Tell me. Where is Gabriel now?”

Beelzebub gives him a blank look. “Why?”

“Does it matter?” 

“I supposzze not,” Beelzebub sighs. “He iszz dead.”

For an instant, Aziraphale is so shocked he can’t fathom what he’s just heard. And then the meaning of Beelzebub’s words strikes like a blow. “Dead?”

“Yeszz.” Beelzebub braids their fingers together, gaze turned inward. “In the battle that left me like… thiszz.” Their lips curl in a mirthless smile. “A battle. I should call it what it was – a massacre.”

Aziraphale draws in a shaking breath. His world reels with the knowledge of Gabriel’s demise: the last Archangel, gone. Dead. He careens from shock to disbelief to acceptance before settling, finally, on relief soured by guilt. If Gabriel is gone, Crowley’s mission to kill him will be in vain. He may yet meet his doom in the outside world, but at least it won’t be on the end of an Archangel’s sword. 

“Tell me,” he says.

Beelzebub shrugs, seeming unspeakably weary. “They lured out our armieszz with hostageszz. Generalszz, angelszz and demonszz we could not spare. Our scoutszz reported few forceszz, so we believed we had the upper hand.” A bitter laugh, knuckles straining white. “When we were all in place, fighting the decoy forceszz, they struck. Netszz, barrierszz closing uszz in like animalszz for the slaughter.” A muscle twitches in their jaw and they turn to face the back cushion of the sofa. “We never stood a chanczze.”

Aziraphale sits back, fighting the look of incredulity he can feel creeping over his face. It’s amazing, he thinks, how easily the humans outpaced Heaven and Hell. How quickly their cruelty and ingenuity has evolved from Biblical times, flying higher than the gilded spires of Heaven and plumbing deeper than the darkest chasms of Hell. How Gabriel smirked about Armageddon, as if the death of humanity was a foregone conclusion. How he and Beelzebub clung to their _great plan, _a shroud of lies draped over a reality gone to rot. 

“And… the Freedom Fighters?” Aziraphale prompts. “How many were on the battlefield?”

“Very few,” Beelzebub says. “A mere handful. But it waszz enough.”

“But how could…” Aziraphale trails off; it’s pointless to ask. Reeling, desperate for this interaction to be over, he rises. “I have to go check the wards.” The lie tastes like ashes in his mouth. “Rest. I will check on you later.”

Beelzebub says nothing, and Aziraphale leaves the sitting room. 

That night, tossing and turning in a bed that seems far too empty and vast and cold, Aziraphale ponders what to do. He could take Adam and Elena somewhere, try to keep them safe, but Adam’s condition may worsen if he’s forced to travel. For all his bravado, the Antichrist is too human, too frail. Crowley’s miracles may have saved him from death, but even the healing would have taken its toll. Human bodies aren’t made to sustain mortal wounds and knit back together in scant hours. Crowley prevented Adam’s untimely death at the cost of his strength, his stamina. Probably a few months shaved off at the end of his life, too, though Aziraphale doesn’t dwell on that. 

He would prefer to risk moving them while he stays behind to delay the Freedom Fighters, but that option has already been rejected out of hand. For all Adam’s infirmity, he and Elena have formidable stubbornness between the two of them.

Aziraphale huffs and turns on his side, trying to make himself comfortable. He’s doing a poor job of fooling himself. The true reason he won’t leave is the same reason he hasn’t left this cottage in decades: he’s afraid. He’s afraid and weak and useless, and he can’t face the outside world. Not yet.

_You will be the death of them, _he thinks, _and Crowley will never forgive you._

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Aziraphale closes his eyes and drapes himself in the stifling steel-wool numbness he has come to know so well. 

-

A drumbeat of fists on the bedroom door. Elena’s panicked voice. “Aziraphale. Aziraphale!” A creak as the door swings open and, moments later, hands shaking him by the shoulder. “Get up!”

Aziraphale opens his eyes and regards her with bleary confusion. “What…?”

Elena pushes her hair back with trembling hands. Her skin is waxen in the gloom, eyes darting from Aziraphale to the door and back.

“The wards,” she stammers out. “The—the wards aren’t going to work.”

Icy fear trickles through Aziraphale’s numbness. “What?”

“I saw it,” Elena says hurriedly. “And it’s _soon, _I know it is, we have to go!”

Aziraphale closes his eyes and envisions the concentric circles of the wards in his mind. They are desiccated husks of their former glory, crumbling shavings of copper, but they should still be enough to hold back uninvited humans. He startles, hands fisting in the bedclothes, as a cluster of shining beacons charges past the ward at the stream. _They’re here._

“What—” He cuts himself off with an explosive gasp and stumbles out of bed. There’s no time to wonder _how, _there’s no _time _at all. “Get Adam,” he barks, already turning toward the sitting room. “Meet us at the Land Rover. Hurry!”

Elena darts around a corner and out of sight. Aziraphale hurries into the sitting room, where he finds Beelzebub trying to claw their way off the sofa, panting and sweating. “What iszz it?”

“Freedom Fighters,” Aziraphale says, sliding his arm around the Prince of Hell’s shoulders and ignoring their snarl of indignation. “We have to go. _Now!”_

With Aziraphale supporting Beelzebub’s weaving footsteps, the two stagger through the sitting room and into the kitchen. An acidic glow fumes through the kitchen windows, wavering over the walls and pushing shadows into corners. They halt for an instant, both stunned.

“Fire,” Aziraphale breathes.

“Hellfire,” Beelzebub corrects. 

Aziraphale can feel gooseflesh rising along the back of his neck. _The bookshop, my beloved books. Gone, burnt down to ashes. _“Hurry,” he croaks, and drags Beelzebub through the glare of Hellfire.

The front door opens to an inferno. Fire roars through the distant trees, a blazing pillar that consumes and grows and is never sated. Black smoke vaults into the air like a war pennant, drowning out the very stars. Aziraphale grimaces as the firelight stings over his skin, fighting the urge to shrink back. Beside him, Beelzebub narrows their eyes. 

“You are not immune to Hellfire,” they surmise in a tone of bitter defeat. “And that worm, Crowley—”

“Well done,” Aziraphale snaps. He stumbles toward the hulking silhouette of the Land Rover, dragging the Prince of Hell along. “Only took you thirty years to work it out. Flee first, fight later.”

Beelzebub glares at him. “When I have my strength back, you and that belly-crawling, pitiful excuse for a demon will…”

_Princes of Hell are no different than Archangels, _Aziraphale thinks wearily, ignoring the tirade. Little wonder the humans made such swift work of them; they’re all so predictable. 

“…and when I’m done with Crowley, he will wish he had never been—”

“Let me be perfectly clear,” Aziraphale says, halting so suddenly Beelzebub nearly trips. He pins the demon with a look that feels dredged up from the numbness inside him, from a place fear cannot touch. “If, by some miracle, you survive this night, you had better pray to anyone who will bother _listening _that I don’t. Because if you touch a hair on Crowley’s head, I will _fucking end you.”_

Beelzebub gapes at him. When Aziraphale steers them toward the Land Rover, they go without another word. But as they draw closer and the murk of thrown shadows sharpens into clarity, Aziraphale’s heart sinks. The Land Rover sags on its rims, the tires slashed. 

“Aziraphale!” Elena’s voice rings out as she emerges from the cottage with Adam stumbling on her arm. They hobble over, their pace agonizingly slow. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing we can’t sort out,” Aziraphale says, lifting a hand to snap his fingers.

A deafening shot splinters the air. Aziraphale staggers, clapping a hand to his shoulder as if to stem the sudden eruption of pain. Beelzebub, thrown by the sudden movement, falls down in a heap. Through the stunned murk of Aziraphale’s thoughts, Adam and Elena’s voices float, distorted and meaningless. He slumps against the Land Rover, using his good shoulder to brace himself as he peels his hand away from the blazing epicenter of pain. His palm comes away warm and wet, vividly golden in the firelight. 

_Bullets,_ he thinks distantly, locking his knees so he doesn’t sink to the ground. _They have bullets now._ He can feel a runnel of warmth moving down to clot in the crease of his inner arm. Nearby, Beelzebub clambers upright, fingernails elongating into black talons to claw for purchase against the Land Rover. Their face is a rictus of agony as one wing beats, strong and frenzied, while the other twitches in a horrible facsimile of flight. 

“Aziraphale!”

He looks up, dazed, to find Elena and Adam standing before them. His lips move, but he can scarcely hear his own voice. “How…?”

“Hurry,” Elena barks to Adam, wrenching open the passenger door. She takes Aziraphale’s good shoulder in a surprisingly powerful grip. “Get in!”

“Elena,” Aziraphale manages, “go. Now. Take Adam and—”

“No!” she snarls. Her tone is so vehement it sets Aziraphale aback. She glares at him, eyes shining with unshed tears. “I am _not_ leaving you. If—if I did, Auntie would never…” She trails off and sucks in a breath. “Get in.”

Aziraphale obeys. He is growing weaker by the moment, coordination failing as he struggles to climb into the Land Rover. His left hand slips, slick with blood, and he nearly pitches backward, but Elena puts all her weight against him to keep him upright. Once he’s bundled into the backseat, lying prone on the cracked upholstery, things happen very quickly. Elena springs into the driver’s seat and cranks the key in the ignition. As the engine rumbles to life, Adam climbs, dragging Beelzebub behind him. The Prince of Hell slumps on the floor beside the backseat, wings folded in haphazardly. In the glare of the approaching flames, their face is bone-white, the mask of a corpse. 

“The tires, Aziraphale!” Elena shouts, already bringing a heavy foot down on the gas. Blinking past the bright spots dancing across his vision, Aziraphale raises his right hand and snaps his fingers. The Land Rover bounces, tires re-inflating and fountaining up dirt as Elena wrenches the steering wheel sideways. They gain speed, barreling toward the woodland road, and gunshots thunder over the growl of the engine. Aziraphale sets his teeth and Beelzebub winces, but beyond a _snap_striking the back bumper, they appear to be unscathed.

“Adam!” Elena shouts over the engine. “If you have any of your power left, now would be a good time—”

A roar of gunfire drowns out Adam’s reply. Aziraphale blinks as bright bursts of shrapnel explode like dying stars in the gloom. Adam slumps in his seat, shoulders heaving with the exertion of a minor miracle. He has little power and even less strength to wield it. 

Aziraphale drags his gaze through the sharp silhouette of Beelzebub’s primary feathers and to the sky outside the car window. The stars have gone away, obscured by cloud cover, and there is something terribly sad in that empty blackness – he will never again see Crowley’s beloved stars. He shudders and chokes on a sob as his body tries to expel the bullet, to make the ravaged flesh whole once more, but the malevolent thing refuses to budge. His breath is coming in bursts and his palm is slick with blood and he’s going to die in the backseat of a car and Crowley will never know—

_Aziraphale. _Crowley’s voice rings in his head as infernal power batters the link between them._ Aziraphale! Are you there?_

His eyes fly open. “Crowley,” he breathes, so softly it is lost beneath the rising whine of the engine. It can’t be, shouldn’t be, but it most certainly _is, _and his heart is hammering fit to tear itself to shreds against his ribcage. “No, no…”

A wave of agony crashes over him as his injury reasserts itself. As if sensing his pain, the infernal power redoubles with desperate strength. _Aziraphale!_

And he can’t hold against that force, he isn’t strong enough. His walls are crumbling under the combined efforts of holding onto consciousness and keeping the ward intact. The link yields and Aziraphale feels his fear bleed through in an incoherent rush. Crowley bellows his name time and time again, and with a mighty strain, Aziraphale closes off his mind. 

_Aziraphale!_ Crowley continues. _You have to run, the humans are—_

_Stay away._ He wills the thought to be as unyielding as steel, but he can’t help the plea that steals into it, a hairline crack in his resolve. _Crowley. Swear to me you will stay away._

_What—_ The cold slap of Crowley’s disbelief and fear submerges Aziraphale, and _Oh, how did you weather this for so long? How did you stay by my side, day after day and year after year when I was drowning in fear and could only drag you down with me? _

_Aziraphale, wait! _Crowley begs, but Aziraphale won’t hear it. 

_They’re here. _He means it as a declaration of finality, but he can’t stave off a shiver of terror. At least it won’t last much longer. _Goodbye, my dear one._

He severs the link before Crowley can respond. In the ringing silence, he is depleted and adrift. As if, in cutting himself off from Crowley, he has lost a vital piece of himself.

No sooner has the thought entered his head than he feels it: the outermost ward singing like a plucked harp string as a demonic presence barrels toward it. Heaving in a breath, he closes his eyes and visualizes the crumbling, concentric circles. He musters all the power he can and throws it into the ward. _Keep him out. Do _not _let him pass. If he comes here, Crowley will—_

He feels it: the moment the ward ensnares and rebuffs Crowley. No doubt he will be livid, but that seems a trifling price to pay if he stays alive. Aziraphale draws a breath and feeds the dregs of his power into the ward, shoring it up. _I hope you can forgive me, one day. I hope you can understand I was only trying to keep you safe._

“They’re being awfully careful,” Adam remarks to Elena.

“They’ve got to be,” she replies. “You know how difficult those bullets are to manufacture. They haven’t got many, and…” She trails off, her gaze in the rearview mirror falling on Aziraphale and Beelzebub with a palpable weight. “Well,” she continues, “that’s good for—”

A shot thunders over the din and cracks web across the windshield. Elena jerks the wheel and Adam leans across the seat to shove her down just before the second shot explodes the windshield in a spray of shards. Aziraphale covers his eyes as the world spins off its axis, nosedives, and crashes to a halt.

When everything swims back into focus, Aziraphale finds himself staring up and out the passenger door window. The Land Rover, he realizes, is resting on its side. The skeletal fingers of trees and the night sky beyond are stained red and orange in the diseased glow of Hellfire. Beelzebub groans and Aziraphale startles as an elbow jabs him in the side. He’s fallen on top of them, crushing their injured wing against the back of Elena’s seat. In the front, Elena lies slumped against the driver-side window, one arm wrapped around the steering wheel at an unnatural angle. Adam leans over her, hand braced on the partition as he touches her hair with trembling fingers.

“Elena,” he says. A cut on his brow sheets blood over one eye and down his cheek. “Elena, wake up—”

Aziraphale fumbles one blood-slicked hand over the partition to touch Elena, and without thinking of it, he channels a little jolt of power into her. The flickering life inside her roars into a flame and her eyes fly open. She gasps, sits up, and presses a hand to her temple. Aziraphale’s vision blurs as his hold on the wards begins to slip. 

“Oh, thank you,” Adam is saying, over and over again, and Aziraphale can’t tell if he or God or Satan or the capricious whims of Fate are being thanked. “Thank you, thank you…”

“’Zirphale,” Elena mumbles, a bit slurred, and it sounds so like how she used to pronounce his name as a child, toddling after him on uncoordinated legs. _Zirfal, Zirfal. _She grips the partition, fingers sliding over Adam’s knuckles. “We’ve… we’ve got to get out… They’re coming…”

Adam scrabbles at the lever to the passenger door, kicks it open. Heat spills into the car. Aziraphale pushes his arms against the back of Elena’s seat to roll himself off Beelzebub, grimacing as gold blood stipples the upholstery. With what feels a mighty effort, he gets his feet under him and reaches up to push open the passenger door. The handle is hot to the touch. 

The door opens to a wave of scorching heat. Head swimming, Aziraphale grips the side of the open door with his uninjured arm and heaves himself up. He is too exhausted and too muddled to even think of raising a barrier, but when he lifts himself out of the Land Rover and drops to the ground, no shot sounds to end him. He staggers to the open door and drops a hand inside.

“My lord,” he says in a cracked voice. “Hurry.”

A hand clasps his and Beelzebub pulls themself from the car, mangled wing dragging behind. Aziraphale offers them an arm as they stumble upright, head bent as they spit bile into the dirt. 

“If you could raise a barrier, my lord,” Aziraphale says, “that would be…”

Beelzebub lifts a shaking hand. The barrier they cast is a paltry thing, more a soap bubble than a steel wall, but it offers a scrap of security as they wait for Adam to pull Elena from the Land Rover. She falls into his arms, gasping in pain, and he mutters an apology as they stagger away from the Land Rover. They are at the hilltop, where the rusted bench stands vigil and holds the final ward in place. Firelight paints lurid streaks across the gaunt trees of the downs, and it’s as if Hell itself has opened, the earth splitting apart to spill out scalding light and gouts of flame. Aziraphale’s heart thunders in his ears and his palms are clammy with sweat and blood and he thinks he’s never been so afraid in all of his existence. He is more afraid than when Armageddon was underway the first time around. More afraid than when the humans pinned him under a net and began cutting his wing. More afraid than when Crowley left.

Every atom of Aziraphale’s being is electrified with fear, and for a single, crystalline moment, he considers it: leaving. He could muster what power he has left, drop the wards, abandon Adam and Elena, and run. He has the strength to do that much, he knows it. With a snap of his fingers, he could disappear to some deserted corner of the world and never be troubled again. Flee somewhere outside the reach of Heaven, Hell, and humanity. He could probably go farther, if he truly wanted it – he could take himself off to the distant stars and sleep for millennia. And one day he would wake, shiny and new, and the world would be a burnt-out husk. And he would still be afraid, but at least he would be the only one left with his fear.

Aziraphale raises his hand, a miracle brewing in the tension between his thumb and middle finger. He is only distantly aware of figures swarming the clearing, bearing their hatred in the fire and blades and guns they carry. Freedom Fighters, probably the very same that annihilated the forces of Heaven and Hell. The same who killed Gabriel, burned Michael and Uriel, butchered Sandalphon. They slaughtered the most powerful beings in Heaven and now they are _here, _and Aziraphale holds his own escape between his thumb and middle finger. All he needs do is snap.

Mayhem is all around, but for a precious few seconds, Aziraphale is suspended in a bubble of unreality: a face in the crowd watching the condemned climb up to the scaffold, perfectly aware he will soon join them. Frozen on the cusp of flight. 

Beelzebub is screaming and snarling and flaring their wings, healthy and mutilated alike, raking their claws across the face of the first human stupid enough to get too close. As the human falls back, screaming and clutching bloody tatters of skin, four more replace him, each one holding the corner of a net. Beelzebub’s wing catches the closest one and throws him with an audible _crack _of breaking bones, but the other three are swift and relentless. They throw the net over Beelzebub and pin them, thrashing and shrieking, down to the ground.

Elena and Adam fare no better. Adam is shoving Elena behind him, hand outstretched as if in supplication. His power might be diluted, but there is no mistaking the desperate intensity that slices through the air as he lashes at the first Freedom Fighters to come within range. One staggers, eyes gone glassy, but three others take her place. They are a hydra, unending and crazed with bloodlust. A fair-haired young man – scarcely more than a boy – raises a pistol. The shot roars above the din and Adam collapses, clutching his leg. 

“Adam!” Elena screams, rushing toward him, but the other two Freedom Fighters intercept her and hold her back. She shrieks with pain as one twists her injured arm behind her back. The fair-haired boy swaggers to Adam’s crumpled form with an air of lazy exultation. 

“It is you, isn’t it,” he says. “Adam Young. Knew you’d survived.”

“Get away from him!” Elena spits.

The fair-haired boy glances at her. “You know, I reckon you should shut it.”

One of the Freedom Fighters hits Elena hard enough to snap her head to the side. A broken cry sounds from the other side of the clearing. Aziraphale turns. He is quite certain his needless heart stops beating.

Morgan Pulsifer-Device stands on the edge of the clearing, a burning torch clasped in one hand. Trembling and stooped, he looks more like an old man than a boy barely past twenty, but that observation is shoved to the back of Aziraphale’s mind to make way for one very simple truth: that Morgan looks painfully like Newt. From his dark, unmanageable hair to his almond-shaped eyes, he is Newt’s son in every respect. But for the hint of ochre in Morgan’s complexion, the two could almost be identical. 

The sting of glimpsing Newt’s reflection is swiftly supplanted by a keener, crueler pain. Aziraphale draws in a slow breath, feeling as if one of the ravening blades has cut to the heart of him. The Freedom Fighters could only have slipped past the wards with Morgan’s help. The entire Pulsifer-Device family had admission to the cottage, and after watching one angel murder his father, Morgan chose to use that privilege to rid the world of another. 

“Don’t, Tom,” he calls. Somehow, despite the tumult of the Freedom Fighters subduing Adam and Beelzebub, his voice shears through the noise. “Don’t hurt her.”

The fair-haired boy – Tom – turns toward Morgan with an indulgent smile. “We won’t _kill _her, mate. We’re just… keeping her quiet for now. Don’t fret.”

“But—”

“Morgan.” The smile drops from Tom’s mouth. “You want to help, don’t you? Help us kill the things that killed your dad?”

His offhand tone – the casual manner in which he mentions Newt’s death – sends a chill of shock through Aziraphale. Morgan flinches as if struck, expression wounded. After a heartbeat of stunned silence, he drops his gaze and tries to shutter his emotions, but he would do better to fend off the Deluge with a leaky umbrella. Aziraphale’s mind offers up memory after memory of Morgan as a child: always so sensitive, always so distraught when the careful order of his world tipped into chaos. Morgan, sullen and brooding when he thought his parents loved his sister more than him. Tears streaming down his fat cheeks as he ran to Crowley in the garden, a half-smashed caterpillar lying dead in his cupped hands. The pure, uncomplicated joy that lit his face when Crowley snapped his fingers and brought the tiny creature back to life. 

A lifetime ago, he was family. Now, his mouth sets in a grim line and he nods. 

Tom flicks a glance toward Aziraphale, and suddenly there is no time to react. A grunt of pain escapes him as something strikes the back of his head, sending him to his hands and knees. Clawing at the cold earth, struggling to anchor himself to consciousness, Aziraphale is too slow and too weak to move when the net descends upon him. Nausea roils in his belly and his vision blurs. He is back in London, back outside the bookshop, and the humans are going to cut him into bloody chunks. 

But he still has the miracle. He still has a flicker of power, a charge set between his fingers. With one snap, he may yet be able to escape. 

With what feels a mighty effort, Aziraphale raises his head and gazes around the clearing. There is Beelzebub, their thrashing dwindled to sporadic twitching as the net saps their strength down to the dregs. Freedom Fighters gather around, blades gleaming in their hands. There is Adam, face-down in the dirt with one Freedom Fighter holding him still while another trains a rifle on his head. There is Elena, still fighting as her captors jeer and jostle her about. There is Morgan, watching it all take place with a haunted look in his eyes.

And beyond that – beyond the carnage and destruction and flame – the South Downs slopes into the distance. Gently-rolling hills climb into crags and plateaus, at once stark and soothing, as if they have the strength to hold up the sky. In an instant, Aziraphale is swept up in a tumult of memories, of all the incredible places he’s been and the people he’s met and the world he has loved. Six-thousand years, and there is still so much he wants to see. 

_I’m not ready. _The thought is a mustard seed in his mind, roots cracking through a rotten foundation of isolation and fear. It’s shocking, and despite Aziraphale’s knee-jerk impulse to quash it, the thought quickens. Grows. _I’m not ready for the world to end._

Because it’s the world, isn’t it. It’s the world where Aziraphale and Crowley met, became colleagues, became _friends. _It’s the world under which Crowley’s stars are suspended like a fanciful mobile above a sleeping child. It’s the world where Aziraphale discovered the joys of comfort and food and softness and warmth. It’s the world where an Antichrist could grow up, neither as an agent of good or evil, but as a _human. _It’s the world where he shielded Crowley under his wing, where they supped on oysters together, where they strode through St. James’ Park, where they saw the best and worst and darkest and brightest of humanity. Where they finally saw each other.

“To the world,” Aziraphale says, and snaps his fingers.

And, despite his dwindling strength, a miracle occurs. The pocket between realities opens and Aziraphale reaches inside, fingers curling around the hilt of his sword. He draws it forth in a blaze of divine fire and arcs a searing blow through the net. The webbing parts with a hiss, dropping to the ground as he draws to his full height. 

The first human to react is the Freedom Fighter holding a shotgun to Adam’s head. He whirls around and sights down the barrel in one fluid motion – a practiced move, employed often enough to become second-nature. But Aziraphale was a soldier, and while the battlefield may be a memory buried under many millennia of relative peace, his warrior’s instincts are as keen as when he first held a sword. The Almighty made him to fight, so when he reaches out to deflect the shotgun, it is as if the blade is faster than his body, faster than his thoughts. As if every other aspect that ever shaped him was superfluous, chaff to be threshed away. The Freedom Fighter falls back, clutching his hand – a hairline scratch on his palm, already cauterized – and the gun arcs through the air to land several yards off, hewn into several neat pieces. 

For an instant, Aziraphale is as surprised at himself as the humans are. He stares down at the flaming sword, inhales the iron stink of charred blood. His own blood pounds in his ears, a drumbeat of war, and something stirs deep in his soul. It’s the beast that roused to fight when Gabriel threatened Crowley, so many years ago. He had thought it sated, but the power humming through him gives lie to that notion. The beast was merely biding its time, waiting for new prey to stumble into its path. 

Crowley would speak of Sauntering Vaguely Downwards, a forced injection of levity into the truth of his Fall. He had only asked questions, he said. Only drifted away from Her light, step by unwary step until he was lost in the dark. Aziraphale understands, now, that he did much the same. He was never truly punished for giving away the flaming sword, never formally demoted from cherubim to Principality. It just… happened. One day, a hundred years or so after the Garden, he knew he was no longer that Aziraphale. In all his wanderings on Earth, in every interaction with humanity, he drifted further from his ruthless station and into something softer. Kinder. He became a Principality because that was what suited him, but the cherubim had never truly gone away. 

In less than a second, Aziraphale is upon the humans surrounding Beelzebub, cutting a burning path through their mass to slice the net to ribbons. Freedom Fighters fall back, forming a protective cluster as Beelzebub stumbles to their feet. Every line of their body shivers with weakness, but still they spread out their unholy wings, flapping the whole one in a show of menace. Beelzebub bares their teeth and _screams – _a horrible, gutting shrill of purest hatred. Some of the Freedom Fighters flinch, faces pale. 

“Kill it!” Tom bellows. Aziraphale turns and sees the boy grab a fistful of Adam’s hair, blade poised to slit his throat. “Kill them both!” 

Aziraphale closes the distance between them with a thought. His body sings with power, lion ferocity and eagle speed and bullish might. It is a struggle to curb the desire to _cut, kill, _but he manages to turn the blade aside. One of his wings flies out and strikes Tom in the chest with bone-crushing force, and it is only then that he realizes _he has four wings. _

“Aziraphale!” Morgan cries. “Don’t hurt him—”

Aziraphale pays him no mind, but reaches down to help Adam up. He winces as weight falls on his injured leg, and Aziraphale heals the wound with a blink. Adam gasps as the bullet worms out of his shin bone to drop to the dirt. 

“How…” Adam trails off as Aziraphale draws back. He stares at the blood drying on his trouser leg. “Aziraphale, what—”

A shot sounds and they both whirl around to watch Beelzebub stumble, black blood oozing from a hole in their trouser leg. Aziraphale closes the distance and lashes out with his blade, and a Freedom Fighter screams as the gun falls to the ground with one of her hands still poised at the trigger. Aziraphale isn’t much of a judge, but the gun resembles a sniper rifle more closely than a shotgun. It smolders with the same ravening malice as the blades and nets. His shoulder throbs in a fresh burst of pain, but he ignores it as a red mist creeps across his senses. Bloodlust, heady and exhilarating. The blade is a blur in his hand as he moves through the Freedom Fighters, disarming and maiming and batting away each one in turn. The temptation to kill outright is a battle all its own, one he is on the verge of losing with every passing moment. He knocks the last Freedom Fighter away with his wing and stands before Beelzebub, panting for breath he doesn’t need. He is dizzy with the thrill of battle. 

“Don’t, Tom! Please!”

Aziraphale turns, not in the direction of Morgan’s voice, but toward Elena. She is still held in place by Freedom Fighters, Adam standing stock-still a few feet away. Tom hunches beside Elena, chest heaving, blade at her throat.

“Tom,” Morgan cries, “please, she isn’t—”

“Shut it,” Tom snarls, all pretense at indulgence gone. “She’s on their side. That makes her just as bad as them.” He jerks Elena back by a hank of dark hair and presses the blade closer. A dark rivulet streams down Elena’s neck and she closes her eyes. Glaring at Aziraphale, Tom calls, “If you so much as twitch, I’ll slit her fucking throat.”

A moment of silence draws out, broken only by the distant crackle of Hellfire in the trees. Aziraphale stares at the blood on Elena’s neck, black as oil in the darkness. Doubt slinks back in and he is paralyzed, besieged. He’s too slow, he won’t make it in time, he’s useless, he’s worthless, _Crowley was right to leave._

“Aziraphale,” a voice says, softly, at his side. He turns. Morgan stands beside him, eyes huge and pleading. He sees the words form on the boy’s lips: _I’m sorry. _He sees them bitten back, crushed under iron resolve.

Before Aziraphale can frame a response, Morgan lowers the torch and sets him aflame.

For an instant, Aziraphale cannot think. And then the horrible reality hits him all at once, a scouring heat that sinks down to the marrow of his bones. The cherubim part of his mind rages at the attack, demands that the betrayal be repaid in rending and blood. If he is to burn, at least he will smite as many humans as he can before the wind scatters his ashes. White-hot fury clouds his mind and every semblance of control slips away from him – his hold on the wards, on the impulse not to kill, on Aziraphale himself. 

_Zirfal on fire. _The words are a distant memory, the lisping voice of a child. Elena’s first prophecy about him, uttered so many years ago. He doesn’t have the presence of mind to dwell on it, and the memory is incinerated in Hellfire.

He faces Morgan and _screams, _and it is holy might distilled in a single, throat-scraping sound. Morgan staggers back, torch falling from his hand, pure terror stamped across his features. The cherubim advances a pace and Morgan stumbles, trips over his own feet. He falls to the ground and slides back, eyes fixed on the being of wrath before him. 

“Aziraphale,” he says, “please, don’t… I—” The plea trips into a sob as the cherubim brings down his blade.

“Angel, don’t!” 

A demon arrows out of the darkness and hurls himself between the cherubim and Morgan. He is a mere pittance of infernality, bruised and haggard and pale, an insect the cherubim could smite with a thought. But something in his voice reverberates past the haze of fury and down to the softer, kinder creature he has become over six millennia on Earth. Down to Aziraphale. He hesitates, just for an instant, and that is ample time for the demon to seize his sword-arm. 

Holy fire races down the blade and catches on the demon’s sleeve. He grits his teeth as the fire chews through the fabric and into his skin, but he does not relinquish his hold on Aziraphale’s arm. 

“Angel,” he says, “this isn’t you. Don’t—” A hiss of pain cuts him short. Tendrils of flame sink into his forearm and thread like molten gold through his skin. “Don’t do this. _Please, _Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale sucks in a breath, heart hammering, throat full. He relaxes his grip on the sword until Crowley eases one hand away and snaps his fingers. The Hellfire – in the trees, on the torches, on _Aziraphale _– gutters out in an instant. Not even a trace of smoke remains. 

He stares at Crowley for a beat, half-convinced he has conjured him from fantasy. “Oh.”

Crowley lifts a gold-scarred hand and pushes the hair back from Aziraphale’s face. “There you are.”

No sooner has he uttered the words than a cry comes from the other end of the clearing. Aziraphale turns, Crowley’s hand clasped in his, wings spread to shield him. His injured wing remains folded at his side – even now, he doesn’t trust it, but the other three make an intimidating show on their own. 

Freedom Fighters fall back as a wave of unholy power flattens the dead grass and rattles the withered tree branches. Adam crouches, shoulders heaving, one of Tom’s arms wrenched back at a painful angle and a knee buried in his back. Elena kneels nearby with a hand held to her throat. Blood streams between her fingers and her eyes are blank with shock.

Crowley snaps his fingers and they are with her in an instant. He settles beside Elena, one hand rubbing soothing circles over her back even as his voice trembles. “Th-there there, little viper… All better, now…” 

He snaps his fingers and Elena shudders. After a moment, she pries her hand away from her throat. Beneath the dark smear of blood, her skin is whole and unmarked. Crowley helps her to her feet. 

“Let me go!” Tom snarls, twisting in Adam’s grip. “Let me go, you fucking—” He yelps as Adam pulls his arm back further. 

“Shut up,” Adam says, eyes dark with hate.

On the other end of the clearing, Beelzebub snaps their fingers and turns the tattered shreds of the net into serpents. They slither like smoke toward the bedraggled Freedom Fighters, growing immense, fangs bared. Aziraphale squeezes Crowley’s shoulder.

“Keep an eye on them,” he says, and joins Beelzebub with a thought. “My lord, you mustn’t kill them.”

“They deserve to die,” Beelzebub snarls. “And once I have their soulszz, I will make them regret maiming me.”

Aziraphale reaches out a hand and closes his fist. The serpents close around the Freedom Fighters, effectively restraining them without killing them. For a few seconds, Beelzebub’s power strains again his, but Aziraphale is stronger than them. The serpents congeal into tight cords, immobilizing each human with ease. Beelzebub shoots him a vengeful look.

“Not like this,” Aziraphale says.

“They must face justiczze,” Beelzebub snaps.

“They will.” Aziraphale looks across the clearing. Morgan stands at its center, the burnt-out torch hanging from his hand as he lowers his head and weeps. Past him, Adam Young throws his arms around Crowley in a bear-hug. “I know they will. But that is no longer our duty.”

Across the clearing, Crowley meets his gaze over Adam’s shoulder. A weary, helpless smile curves his mouth. Aziraphale tries to smile back, but he is suddenly so very tired. He looks down at his own hands with a kind of detached bewilderment. The skin is smudged but unburnt. Not so much as a blister.

“The world is changing, my lord,” he says at last, raising his head. In the distance, the palest suggestion of dawn gathers on the horizon. “We must learn to change with it.” 


	11. apple bruises

Every morning after sunup, Aziraphale and Crowley make a point not to check the wards. 

It’s unnerving, this – it’s a trial every day, the instinctual panic gripping Aziraphale’s stomach anew with each sunrise. Familiar only in its predictability, the fear threatens to choke him, make shim sick every time they stroll past a ward without pause. He tries nonetheless; every morning, he tries. Sometimes that’s all he can do.

It was Crowley’s idea, these morning walks. When he first suggested it, Aziraphale was reluctant, wary of falling prey to old compulsions. Certain that yielding even that small ground would spill him back into the dark depths of fear and drown him. But Crowley was optimistic and considerate and _kind,_ so bloody kind, treating Aziraphale like the finest porcelain, to be handled only with the utmost care. 

“Just a walk,” he said, hands braced on the kitchen counter behind him. His tone was easy and gentle, totally at odds with the lines of tension curling through his fingers as they gripped the tile. “Nothing more. We can go to the hill and back.”

And while Aziraphale might have been injured, might have been traumatized, he was still no fool. The control Crowley governed over himself spun wheedling and begging into coaxing and cajoling, whittled his true desires down to mere slivers. Aziraphale’s heart bled for him. 

And so, in spite of his qualms, he agreed to the morning walks.

The principle was simple: they would go about the wards, following the routine Aziraphale had used as a crutch over the past three decades with a single, crucial change. Aziraphale was not to reinforce the wards. He was not so much to _look _at them, not if he could manage it – this rule was imposed by Aziraphale himself, and enforced only with Crowley’s reluctant acquiescence. 

“Try not to—not to overdo it,” Crowley said, dragging out each word with the wincing discomfort of fishhooks sunk in deep. “We can take a few minutes with each one. If… if you need it. Honestly, we don’t even have to ignore all of them. Could start smaller, actually. Reinforce one less ward each week. Or each month.”

He had been so _earnest, _so sincere. It nettled Aziraphale as much as it touched him, somehow, and his emotions were so tangled he had no way of knowing whether he was annoyed at Crowley or himself. What he _did _know was the determination to prove himself to them both. 

And so, every morning after sunup, Aziraphale tries not to check the wards. 

His first attempt is met with disaster, of course. When he strides past the doorframe, resolutely ignoring the first ward, Aziraphale is half-convinced the tremors coursing through his body are born of exhilaration. Triumph, even. But when he passes the ward on the garden gate, a sickening weight congeals in the pit of his belly. He is reaching out to lift the latch on the main gate when his breaths quicken and his chest grows tight, as if his lungs are shrinking around too much air. He grips the top of the gate, fights a sudden urge to wrench the thing off its hinges. 

“Aziraphale.” Crowley’s voice is soft but urgent in his ear. “Angel. That’s enough for now.”

Aziraphale shakes his head and tries to protest, but a bitter, battle-hungry roar clambers up his throat and it’s all he can do to remain silent. He’s angry, he’s _so angry_ and there’s no outlet for the anger, no way to sate the cherubim. He masters himself after a time, but it’s a near thing. Prying his hands off the gate, he draws up to his full height and turns to Crowley.

“I think,” he says, “you are correct, dear boy.”

Crowley watches him pass with a wary gaze, arms folded around himself. The realization that he’s nervous – that _Aziraphale makes him nervous _– lands like a blow, and Aziraphale keeps his eyes fixed determinedly forward as he walks back into the cottage. The creases of his fingers sting with splinters from the gate. 

In the sitting room, Aziraphale goes to the shelf and pulls a book down with barely a thought for its contents. The seat cushion of his armchair sighs as he plops down and opens a page at random. As his eyes track the same line of text over and over, Crowley slinks through the doorway. His discomfort is palpable, and Aziraphale tenses in his seat.

“All right?” Crowley asks, as cool as anything.

“Yes, of course,” Aziraphale says. “Everything is just… tickety-boo.”

For the briefest moment, he thinks he catches the fleeting edge of a smile, but it’s gone when he risks a second glance. Crowley stares down, as if mulling over a complex puzzle hewn into the floorboards. 

“Think we can try again?” he asks, his tone utterly laid-back.

“Yes,” Aziraphale says. “Of course. Why ever wouldn’t we?”

“Right,” Crowley says, a ragged edge of worry creeping into his tone. “Well, maybe we should try again in a few—”

“Tomorrow.”

“Oh. Are. You’re sure?”

“Of course,” Aziraphale repeats, the words clipped. He lifts his gaze to meet Crowley’s in a direct show of defiance. “No time like the present. Or, in this case, the very near future.”

Crowley hesitates only for a fraction of a moment. Then he nods. “Right. Well.” He gestures vaguely toward the front door. “I’m going out. Got to work on the…”

He’s gone, slipping out and leaving the words unsaid. He is going to go work on the garden, painstakingly piece back together the destruction Aziraphale wrought. He could restore the razed plants to their former glory with a snap of his fingers, but he would rather spend hours alone instead, coaxing every last bud back to life. 

_The better to get away from me._

Aziraphale lowers the book to his lap and brushes jittery fingers over the edges of the pages, worn soft over thirty years of reading. He can’t settle, and Crowley is afraid of him and has every right to be, and all Aziraphale can do is steep in the simmering background noise of his own resentment. 

_It’s not fair, _he thinks. His thoughts are a tumult of rage and shame and sorrow, so much sorrow for all the time he’s wasted. The time he continues to waste. Because while he may have driven off the Freedom Fighters, he is still afraid. He still can’t face the outside world, can’t go beyond the bloody _front gate _without dissolving into hysterics,and now he has to fear himself, too. The cherubim very nearly killed Crowley and Morgan. That their blood is not on his hands is more miraculous than any parlor trick he ever plucked from Above. Even now, that ugly, animalistic side of him draws back its lips and bares its teeth, eager for a soft throat to tear. For warm blood to spill. 

A lump fills Aziraphale’s throat, painfully tight. Tears blur his vision and he curses softly, standing. The least he can do is make sure the book isn’t damaged. 

As he slots the book back into place, a cry comes from outside. “Angel. Aziraphale!”

Aziraphale is rushing through the kitchen and out the front door without a thought. He is on the cusp of opening the pocket in unreality and seizing the flaming sword when he pelts through the garden gate and finds Crowley standing, hands on hips and glaring at the ground. He halts so suddenly he almost trips. 

Fighting for composure – and failing – Aziraphale asks, “What is it?”

“This.” Crowley jabs an accusatory finger at a sprout that’s managed to worm its way out of the dark earth. Its leaves are vibrantly green in spite of the autumn chill. “Did you plant that?”

For a moment, Aziraphale is so nonplussed he can think of nothing to say. _Yes, my dear, I went on a rampage and destroyed your beloved garden. Then, to add insult to injury, I planted this anonymous sprout. Teach you not to cross me again. _

That is somehow both moronic and hurtful, so he half-says, half-asks, “No?”

“Well, neither did I. And yet, here it is.”

“Perhaps it… grew on its own?”

Crowley scoffs. “Nah. Wouldn’t dare. The wild ones _know _to stay away.”

“So, it’s… a wild sprout, then?”

Crowley heaves a sigh. “First off, angel, it’s a _seedling. _Not a sprout. Secondly, this is just cheeky. _Malus pumila, _for Somebody’s sake…”

“Well,” Aziraphale says, annoyed, “whatever it is, if you don’t want it in your garden, you can simply get rid of it.”

Crowley’s glare deepens, but he is still fixated on the sprout—the _seedling_. After some contemplation, the demon squats to better terrorize the tenacious little interloper. 

“Look here,” he says, “you’re on thin ice, got it?”

Aziraphale leaves shortly after that. If he stays too long, he fears he will be in danger of becoming charmed. 

-

As autumn creeps toward winter, Aziraphale notices something unsettling: Crowley only wears long sleeves.

Given the changing season, this should come as no surprise; Crowley may wear a human skin, but he remains the cold-blooded serpent he has always been. In years past, the mildest chill was enough to send him scurrying toward the chest of drawers where they kept Aziraphale’s coziest jumpers. It’s a treasured memory: Crowley, swamped by a jumper several sizes too big for him, a steaming cup of tea clasped in his bone-white fingers.

_“You don’t have your own jumper?” _Aziraphale had asked. Smiling as he buried his fingers in the plush knit and pulled Crowley closer. 

_“Nah,” _Crowley said. _“S’not my style.”_

_“But it would keep you warm.”_

Even now, Aziraphale can recall Crowley’s expression with perfect clarity – the blush that suffused his cheeks rivalling his hair as he looked down, smiling in a way that was surely meant to be sly but fell far short of the mark.

_“Not as well as this one does,” _Crowley said, and if Aziraphale had any notion of teasing him, it was chased from his mind the moment Crowley kissed him.

No, it is not outside the realm of possibility for Crowley to wear long sleeves. But it _is _strange that he would choose to do so all the time – even in the garden, where the climate has been miracled into balmy tropics never before seen in the United Kingdom. Even as he bins the rotted remnants of the plants Aziraphale razed and mounds the dirt into tidy rows, he does not so much as roll up his sleeves. He basks in the heat, never breaking into a sweat, but Aziraphale knows the long sleeves can’t be _comfortable._

It takes a shamefully long time for the understanding to hit, and when it does, it nearly floors Aziraphale with a new wave of guilt. When, on that horrible day in the clearing, Aziraphale – the _cherubim – _was about to kill Morgan, Crowley had stayed his hand at the last moment. The flames had rushed down the hilt to melt into his skin, rivulets of molten lava. Aziraphale can remember the pain that flashed across Crowley’s face, quickly suppressed. Not quickly enough. 

He doesn’t like to dwell on that day, but sometimes he can’t help himself. The Heavenly fire should have burnt up Crowley like dry tinder. Like the Hellfire should have done to Aziraphale when Morgan dropped the torch on his head. 

Crowley wasn’t destroyed by the Heavenly fire, but his arms must bear the marks of it. Aziraphale thinks of the bullet wound in his shoulder, now scabbed over in a crust of gold. The bullet’s infernal origins had made cleaning the wound difficult and fully healing impossible – he will carry this new scar until the end of days. 

They are both scarred from that day. And he knows, with every ounce of his being, that he would give anything to carry Crowley’s pain – to claim the scars for himself.

-

On that first night after the battle, Crowley retired to the sofa in the sitting room for rest. Aziraphale, beyond exhaustion, had not questioned it. Later, armed with the presence of mind to be concerned, he had reasoned with himself that Crowley would come back to their bed in time. 

He hasn’t. Aziraphale has stopped expecting otherwise, but he leaves the bedroom door unlocked every night nonetheless. 

-

One day in January, Elena visits with news from the outside world.

“Adam is doing well,” she says, spreading a thin skin of butter across her toast. The food rations have become more generous with the battles finished, but Elena has lived most of her life on next to nothing – she doesn’t know _how _to indulge. “He’s almost completely recovered from his injuries, and physiotherapy is moving on as well as can be expected.”

“That’s a relief,” Crowley says, idly breaking a piece of crust off his own toast. Aziraphale wants to remind him not to waste their food, but catches himself.

“I’ll say,” Elena says. “His poor therapist isn’t being paid nearly enough to put up with him. Never mind the weight of the United Kingdom resting on his full recovery. She’s a saint, I tell you.”

“What, is he a rubbish patient?”

“That’s putting it mildly.” Elena takes a bite of her toast, the irritation melting off her face as her eyes close with bliss. A thin scraping of butter is a far cry from no butter at all. “He’s a right terror. Always complaining, and he pushes his boundaries like a dog on the lead. It’s a wonder he hasn’t fallen down the stairs and broken every bone in his body. Especially since he’s up at all hours.”

“So,” Aziraphale says, unthinking, “the two of you are living together.”

A beat of silence lands with palpable weight, stretches into awkwardness. Crowley darts a wide-eyed look at Aziraphale before directing his stare to Elena, who squirms in her seat. The tips of her ears have gone scarlet. 

At last, she juts out her chin. “Yes. Turns out almost getting killed is the perfect way to make people sort out their nonsense.”

Aziraphale can’t help it – the scoff creeps up on him, sudden and harsh. Without so much as a word, he’s made his disbelief plain. Crowley looks at him, the stark hurt on his face wrenching at Aziraphale’s heart.

Aziraphale stands abruptly. “Excuse me. I think I’ll go take the air.”

“Aziraphale,” Elena begins. “I didn’t—”

“Please. There’s no need.” Aziraphale nods curtly, already turning toward the door. “Back in a tic.”

“But—”

Elena’s protests fade under a rush of cold as he opens the door to the night air. He steps outside, closing the door behind him, and takes a few steps across the paving-stone path. The cheery glow of the kitchen window bleeds into the dark. He walks until he is past its light, swaddled in the night, and tips his head up to stare into the sky. 

During the battle, their flight from the cottage in the Land Rover—Aziraphale had lain in the backseat, bleeding onto the cracked upholstery, and stared out the window. The blaze of Hellfire and clot of smoke had choked out the stars, and he had been so sad to be deprived of that last glimpse – of the lovely stars Crowley had crafted. He stares at them now, stretching his senses to their limit, and he can feel it: the warmth of their fire, piercing a distance of thousands of years to touch his skin. A warm, gentle caress. 

Aziraphale closes his eyes and basks in the starlight. If he tries very hard, he can almost imagine it is Crowley touching him.

“Aziraphale, wait.” 

He turns to see Elena dashing toward him, breath a scudding wisp behind her. She halts beside him. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve nothing to be sorry about,” Aziraphale says, more as a reflex than anything.

“I _am,”_ she insists. “I should have kept my mouth shut. I didn’t mean to…”

Aziraphale turns from his perusal of the night sky to study her. Eyes downcast, hands wringing, she is the picture of contrition. 

“You did nothing wrong,” he says. “Crowley and I were… struggling long before this.” He can’t help adding, with a trace of bitterness, “Surely you noticed.”

“I did.” Elena’s voice is thick with emotion. Aziraphale peers more closely at her, startled by the sudden break in her composure. Tears are streaking down her face. She rubs the heel of her hand against her eyes, and the gesture is so childlike it hurts his heart. “I just… I th-thought…”

“Oh, my dear girl.” Aziraphale rests a hand on hers, stopping their restless twisting. She sniffles and drags him into a hug, surprising him. After he had almost sent her and Adam away, he hadn’t thought to expect Elena’s love. A cold shoulder, perhaps, or a pantomime of civility in Crowley’s presence, but—this is real. He feels love pouring off the girl, an endless supply, and he wraps his arms around her. “There, there. It will all sort itself out, sooner or later.”

“D-Dad is gone.” Her voice is choked with tears. “And Mum’s n-not the same… and Morgan…” She drags in a shaking breath, trying to master the weeping. Failing. “Everything’s _changed, _and some of it’s good, I know—some of it is wonderful, but I al-always thought… I always hoped you two would stay the same.”

Elena covers her face, then, shaking and sobbing. Aziraphale tightens his arms around her and makes nonsensical crooning sounds, soft, meaningless assurances. _It will be all right. Don’t fret, dear girl. It will be all right._

He doesn’t know if he believes it, but it feels good – for once – to be the strong one.

-

After that night, it becomes a sort of ritual for Aziraphale – stargazing. When the cottage becomes too oppressive_, _he waits until well after nightfall and takes a walk.

Crowley frets about it, at first. “I can come with you. It’s no bother. Just wake me before you go.” 

The conciliatory tone grates in Aziraphale’s ears. “I am quite capable of walking on my own. Besides,” he adds, softening the clipped consonants, “it’s probably best for me to go on my walks alone. So I… learn how to manage it.”

_Manage what? _The question is plain in Crowley’s stare, unuttered as it is. _The fear? Or when I finally leave for good?_

Thankfully, he says none of that. He only inclines his head, expression shuttered. “Right. Well.” Crowley slips his hands into his trouser pockets. “I’m going to…”

His words trail off as he slithers out of the kitchen and through the front door. Aziraphale stares blankly at the crumbled scone on his plate, distantly noting the creak of the garden gate swinging open and shut. Now that they have tacitly agreed to use miracles again, Aziraphale whipped up the pastry in a fit of whimsy – but his appetite has deserted him. 

Six months have passed since Crowley last touched him. Half a year. To immortal beings like Aziraphale and Crowley, six months is barely a blink.

How then, he wonders, does half a year suddenly seem so vast? The loneliness of it gnaws at him.

And so, as time plods relentlessly onward, Aziraphale takes up stargazing. He begins learning their names, the ones humans gave in their infinite arrogance. Leaving their legends like dirty, beautiful fingerprints across the cosmos. _Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Draco._

It’s a far cry from what he truly wants, but it’s better than nothing.

-

After a year of uneasy silence, things begin to change.

Elena brings them more news with every visit. Freed from the confines of physiotherapy, Adam Young takes to his new role as Prime Minister with a zeal that reinvigorates the world. He has built alliances with politicians around the world – from Europe, North America, Central and East Asia. Young people, people whose childhoods were blighted by war and famine and pollution and death. People who, by all accounts, should despise Heaven and Hell alike. And yet, somehow, they want peace. They are willing to share the world.

“Apparently,” she tells them over tea, “Adam and his friends – the original _Them –_had a kind of game, once. They divided up the world between the four of them. And now, Pepper is head of the Foreign Office.”

“Well,” Aziraphale says, “she always was a spirited girl, if I recall.”

His eyes skate across Crowley and stop. Crowley sits motionless, spine rigid as a pike. The fingers of one hand dig into the other forearm, strong enough for Aziraphale to worry about the state of his sleeve.

His voice is a trifle shrill when he finds it. “Crowley?”

Crowley blinks out of his daze. “Hmm? What?”

“Are you well?” Aziraphale asks. “You look…”

“M’fine,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale can hear his knuckles creak as he pries his hand away from his arm. Crowley pushes back his chair and stands. “Going to the garden,” he says abruptly. “Little viper?”

Elena glances at Aziraphale, apology written in her eyes. It takes Aziraphale back, the intimacy in that brief connection – the understanding, as clear as words. _I have to go. I’m sorry._

They hadn’t had that, before. But almost dying alongside someone will change things.

As Crowley and Elena go to the garden, Aziraphale sits in the gathering silence. His mind lingers on Crowley, on the way he had gripped his own arm. As if he feared losing it.

They haven’t talked about Crowley’s time away. Aziraphale has tried to be respectful, tried to give him space. But what if, in giving that space, he had only pushed Crowley further away? Should he have been pulling him closer, holding on more tightly? That had only driven Crowley away before, but would it have worked now? 

Has he ruined everything without realizing it?

-

One evening, on his way out to go stargazing, Aziraphale is inexplicably drawn to the garden gate. Slowing his steps, he lays a hand on the paint-chipped wood and feels the crumbling husk of the ward he had once attended so diligently. It’s worn down to all but nothing now.

Aziraphale lifts the latch. The gate swings open with a muted _creak _and he steps inside, enveloped in the preternaturally balmy air, the fresh scent of turned earth. Soft dirt sinks beneath his shoes as he steps across the garden. He is careful to avoid a frame here, a budding shoot there. When he last touched something of the garden, it was to destroy it. Crowley may joke about the plants being sentient, but Aziraphale could swear he feels their gazes tracking his every movement.

He sees it, then: the sprout. The _seedling, _as Crowley so scornfully reminded him. Barely two years have passed, but already it stands several feet tall. It looks like a tree, but that can’t be right. No tree native to England would ever grow so quickly.

Aziraphale strokes a finger over one lush, emerald leaf. Crowley could be nursing the tree on his power, accelerating its growth. That would be just like him – to gripe and groan about something weak and useless one moment, only to turn around and help it the next. He’s terribly good like that.

-

As midwinter arrives, so does Beelzebub. 

One day, without so much as a word of warning, Elena drives to the cottage in the Land Rover. As Aziraphale and Crowley walk out of the cottage to greet her, she moves to the passenger door and opens it. The Prince of Hell steps out, looking sober and menacing in spite of the modest transport. Crowley sucks in a breath and Aziraphale tenses, ready to reach for the flaming sword at a moment’s notice. 

Beelzebub crosses the cark park with Elena in tow. They walk with their spine straight and head held high, as proud as a Prince leading Hell’s finest retinue into battle, but Aziraphale isn’t fooled. He knows the pain of a wing injury.

“Lord Beelzebub,” he says. “So good to see you.”

“Ngk,” says Crowley.

“Principality,” Beelzebub says, ignoring Crowley. “Or… perhapszz I should say ‘cherubim.’ I truszzt you are well.”

“We are.” To his bemusement, Aziraphale finds himself smiling. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

As the four sit at the kitchen table, Beelzebub recounts their tale. After the battle, they took it upon themself to amass the remaining angels and demons around the world. Their findings were meager, but they have made great strides negotiating with Adam Young.

“The angelszz and demonszz are wary, of coursezz,” Beelzebub says. They lift their teacup for a sip and pull a face. “But they know to heed my wordszz.”

Aziraphale swallows his skepticism with a mouthful of tea. No doubt Beelzebub’s ‘words’ were thinly-veiled threats. “That’s… very promising. Well done.”

Beelzebub sets their cup aside and fixes Aziraphale with dark, piercing eyes. “It iszz not enough. The demonszz may fall into line, but the angelszz are not so easily coerced. The Archangelszz are all gone; they need a new leader. You muszzt join us, cherubim.”

Silence settles over the room. Elena halts with her teacup raised to her lips, eyes wide. Crowley has gone utterly still, staring down at his hands on the tabletop. At last, Aziraphale finds his voice. “That… that would be an honor, my lord, but I’m not fit for such a role.”

“Bah.” Beelzebub waves away his refusal. “Don’t be foolish. You are the only one who can lead the angelszz.”

“I… I’m not…” _I’m not strong. I’m not brave. I’m not enough. _

Beelzebub shakes their head and stands. “Join me or not. It iszz your decision. But I won’t waste time trying to persuade you.” They cast a dark look at Crowley, who freezes. “If you would sooner while away your time with thiszz pathetic excuse for a demon, you may. The offer remainszz.”

Beelzebub leaves out the front door without another word. After an awkward beat of silence, Elena stands. “I’m—I’m their ride,” she says, awkwardly, before dashing out after them. 

Aziraphale stares after them in astonishment. When Adam had proposed a similar plan – that he become a messenger between humanity and the forces of Heaven and Hell – he had thought the notion ridiculous. Impossible. But now… now, the idea holds some allure. Aziraphale doesn’t believe he is capable of such a task, but he can’t deny he wants to _try. _It’s an old, disused sensation, as stiff as an untrained muscle. He scarcely recognizes it, much less knows how to heed it. 

“Utter—utter balderdash,” he mumbles. “Beelzebub doesn’t know what they’re on about.”

“Don’t know about that,” Crowley says, quick as a slap. Aziraphale looks at him, confused and hurt, but Crowley is already rising to his feet. “Garden,” he mutters, and strides away without another word. The sound of the garden gate closing slams in Aziraphale’s ears. 

That night, Aziraphale goes stargazing. He stays out for hours, until the dawn sunlight blots out their glow. 

When he returns, he finds the cottage cloaked in a morning mist. Frost crystals shimmer on the surrounding trees, reflecting pastel glints of dawn light into the haze. He trudges up the path, snow crunching underfoot, and stops at the garden gate. Part of him knows he would be unwise to go inside; another part is still reeling from Beelzebub’s invitation. He lifts the latch and steps over a crust of ice onto fresh garden soil. 

On the other side of the garden, Crowley crouches before the tree, his back to the gate. His murmured words thread through the humid air: “There you are, you little nuisance. Yes, drink up.”

“I thought you were helping it along,” Aziraphale says. “Taken a shine to it, have you?”

“Suppose so,” Crowley says, still not facing him.

A hush falls over them, strained taut. Aziraphale dithers. He feels like a trespasser in this space. This is Crowley’s refuge, a place that has grown dear to him over three decades of war. Aziraphale is as much an intruder here as the Freedom Fighters were in the cottage. He steps closer, peering over Crowley’s shoulder, and catches a glimpse of his hands. They are filthy, fingernails ringed with dirt.

“You’ve been here all night?” he asks.

“Yeah. Doesn’t seem like there’s much else to do.”

“I—I see.” Aziraphale chews on his lip. He wants to clasp those hands, wants to feel them moving over his body. He licks his lips, suddenly parched. “I’ll—I’ve been thinking about Beelzebub’s offer, and…”

He trails off, then, because Crowley is surging to his feet and closing the distance between them, swift as a viper-strike. His dirt-crusted hands curl around Aziraphale’s nape, thread into his curls, and his lips are warm and taste of the garden, of green life and sticky, sultry air. Aziraphale reacts without thinking, arms curling around Crowley and pulling him closer, until they are pressed flush together. He is in a dream—a memory—whatever it is, it’s too heady and incredible to let slip through his fingers, so he holds on tight. Crowley’s fingers yank at his hair and a whine escapes his lips, and Crowley seizes the chance to slip his tongue inside. The world narrows down to the slide of their mouths, the clutch of their hands, and Aziraphale wants—he wants—_needs _their bodies moving together, here, base and filthy, like the first time all those years ago. 

One of his hands slides down to Crowley’s arse, squeezing muscle through his trousers, and Crowley gusts out a breath but doesn’t protest. His hands cup Aziraphale’s face, smearing dirt over his cheeks, over his jaw, and Aziraphale can’t hold enough of him at once—he fears Crowley will break apart, slip like grains of sand between his fingers. 

Aziraphale slides one hand up Crowley’s side, feeling the familiar knobs of his ribs, and cups the bony jut of his shoulder. His hand slides under the flannel collar of Crowley’s shirt, fingers questing over the ridge of his collarbone, the flat plane of his chest. Crowley is kissing him and kissing him and Aziraphale’s hand peels his shirt back, brushes over his bicep—

And Crowley is shoving him away, shoulders heaving, eyes wild. He grips his shirt collar, yanks it back into place. Aziraphale drags in a shaking breath. “Crowley…”

“I…” Crowley glares down at the dirt. His lips are swollen and red, and Aziraphale’s heart gallops at the sight. “I have to…”

Crowley weaves around him and darts out of the garden, heedless of Aziraphale’s cry. As the gate slams shut, Aziraphale stares through the swimming murk of his vision at the tree. A strange, comforting presence emanates from it – one he very nearly recognizes.

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, realizing. 

He turns around and runs after Crowley. 


	12. mending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm Zingiberis/Ineffablegame on Tumblr.

Crowley has reached the edge of the forest by the time Aziraphale catches up. He stands at the head of the forest path, hands curled into fists at his sides. Taking in the dark, clean lines of him, the fire of his hair against the glinting frost and snow, Aziraphale is momentarily struck dumb. He’s so lovely and so remote. 

Aziraphale wipes his hands on his thighs and clears his throat. The taste of Crowley still lingers on his lips, threatening to derail his train of thought, but he forges onward. “Crowley, please… can we talk?”

Crowley turns, mouth set in a firm line, eyes like shards of amber. Every atom of his being radiates defiance and Aziraphale hesitates, certain he is provoking a creature that has been pushed to desperate extremes. A serpent rearing back to strike. 

“I’m scared,” Crowley says at last. “I’ve been hoping that blasted war would end for decades, dreaming about what I’d do when we could leave, and now…” He trails off, jaw tight. “I’m so bloody terrified, I can barely move.”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale draws closer, reaches out – slowly, bracing himself for rejection – and settles his hands on Crowley’s fists. When Crowley makes no move to push him away, he raises his hands, cradles them like he might a broken bird. “Will you tell me what happened? When you were gone?”

Crowley’s eyes flash up to meet his, then drop to the dirt. Bit by bit, the tension eases from his fists, and his fingers uncurl until they clasp Aziraphale’s. 

At last, he exhales. His shoulders drop. He looks so fragile, so _tired _it makes Aziraphale’s heart hurt.

“Yeah,” Crowley says. “Okay.”

-

They sit side-by-side on the sofa, steaming cups of tea in hand, and Crowley tells Aziraphale everything. From their fight and his departure to his sudden return, he talks and talks, scarcely pausing for breath until he has told the entire story. His tea is cold by the time he finishes; he raises the cup, unthinking, and takes a sip. Pulls a face. 

Aziraphale can only watch him. He feels as if the shock of Crowley’s story is a vast, immovable stone upon him, crushing the air from his lungs. The Freedom Fighters had almost destroyed Crowley. Almost cut off his wings, put him through the same terror and agony Aziraphale suffered, and suddenly the cherubim is rising within him, searing away his senses with white-hot fury. 

It is all he can do to set the teacup aside before he hurls it at the wall. He stands. “I should have killed them when I had the chance. Smote them all to dust.”

“Angel.” Crowley stares into the contents of his cup, gaze gone distant. “You would have hated yourself, after. If you’d done it.”

“I wouldn’t. It would have been justice well-deserved.”

“Aziraphale.” Crowley brushes his fingers against Aziraphale’s, and their kiss in the garden clearly wasn’t enough to sate his need for touch because the contact moves through him like an electric current. “That’s not you.”

_This isn’t you._ Crowley had uttered those words when he stayed Aziraphale’s hand against killing Morgan. How could he believe that after seeing the cherubim fight? How can he touch Aziraphale now, knowing how dangerous he is?

“I hate that they hurt you,” he says. 

“I know. But it’s over, now. Done. We have to let it stay that way.”

Aziraphale can say nothing for several moments. The anger inside him threatens to burn through six-thousand years of love for the world and its humans. He thinks of Elena, of Adam, of Morgan. Jaw clenched, he nods. 

“Good,” Crowley says, then fetches up his teacup and starts toward the kitchen. “Think I’ll tend to the herbs. They’ve been giving me cheek lately.”

And he’s gone, teacup abandoned in the sink and the front door _snicking_ shut behind him. Out the kitchen window, sleet streaks down from a darkening sky. Rivulets stream one over the other and freeze in seconds. An icy lacquer, obscuring the world outside beyond recognition.

-

That night, Aziraphale lays alone in bed and stares through the darkness at the ceiling. His eyes track over each and every pockmark, memorized like constellations over the years. He wishes he could go to the bedroom window, move aside the curtains and let the starlight in, but the clouds over the South Downs are as thick as chalk. Sleet slaps the glass with every gust of wind. 

He feels Crowley’s presence outside the door before he hears him. The door swings open on soundless hinges and closes just as silently. Crowley is a shadow knifing across the room, almost indistinguishable from the dark. He is beside the bed before Aziraphale can think and climbing onto the mattress, so light he barely makes an impression. 

“Crowley,” he begins, “what…”

“Don’t want to talk.” Crowley slides a leg over Aziraphale’s hips, straddling him so the long, sinuous lines of his body are pressed up against him. When he speaks again, he is so close the words fan against Aziraphale’s lips. “Yeah?”

_“Yes.”_

No sooner has the word left his lips than Crowley is surging down into a kiss, forceful and desperate and deep. Aziraphale pushes past the shock of it and grips Crowley’s shoulders, pulling him closer. Something is missing; he can't pinpoint what, only that it's gone. He palms the nape of Crowley’s neck, cradling the base of his skull as their tongues slide together. 

Arousal coils low in his belly and Aziraphale pulls away, breathing hard. “Crowley—are you sure?”

By way of response, Crowley sits back on his heels and moves down Aziraphale’s body. He is quick, desperate, and the sight of his slender fingers undoing the tie of his dressing gown sends Aziraphale’s heart into a sprint. He should stop Crowley, actually _talk _to him, but the notion is chased from his head the moment Crowley curls his hand around his cock. He arches with a soft moan. He’s missed this; _God, _he’s missed this.

“Please,” he says softly, and he doesn’t know what he’s asking for, but Crowley seems to understand. He grips Aziraphale’s hip and lowers his head to take his cock between his lips. 

They’ve done this countless times. Aziraphale should know every facet of Crowley’s body, but now, here, every touch sharpens his nerves to razor-edged alertness. It’s as if this is the first time, and none of the ugliness that followed ever happened. 

Crowley bobs his head, cheeks hollowed, and Aziraphale bites back a cry as his hands fist in the bedclothes. His bare feet slide on the sheets and he has to order himself to let go, not to brace his heels against the mattress and buck up into the sinful heat of Crowley’s mouth. Crowley hums, a low sound of pleasure, and pushes a thumb to the base of Aziraphale’s cock.

His orgasm is torn from him, so sharp and intense it borders on painful. He clutches at Crowley, gripping his shoulders and gasping, “Closer—need you closer.”

He opens himself up with a hasty miracle as Crowley shimmies out of his trousers, still so used to years of rationing their power. They can’t get to it fast enough and Aziraphale wants it, _needs _it so much that he’s almost hard again by the time Crowley presses into him. They wait for a moment once he’s fully seated, brows pressed together, and they’re skin-to-skin but still something is _missing, _even as they settle into a rhythm spurred on by Aziraphale’s murmurings of _faster _and _harder _and _yes, like that _and he’s just reaching his peak when Crowley pulls out and rolls his hips, thrusting in to the hilt, and he’s coming and Crowley is coming, filling him up. 

After, they lay side-by-side in the dark, breathing hard. Crowley eventually shifts, slips out of bed. He gathers his discarded trousers and pants and leaves as quietly as he came. 

-

Very early that morning, Aziraphale wakes to ringing silence. The darkness remains total, the sun still hours away. The sleet has stopped.

He goes out, clad in his dressing gown and slippers and a quilted coat that is more an advertisement of his false humanity than anything. _See, I can fall prey to the cold, too. Just like any other ordinary human. No ethereal or infernal beings here._

Catching himself, Aziraphale hangs the coat on the fence post before continuing on. If he’s to live in Adam Young’s world, he will need to wear his angelic nature like an emblem. Hiding is no longer an option.

Ice crackles underfoot as Aziraphale trudges down the forest path. It isn’t long before he’s reached the bench atop the hill, where his last ward once stood. It’s gone entirely, now, just like all the others. He sits and tips his head back to survey the night sky – a clear, endless ocean of stars. 

Aziraphale closes his eyes and lets the glow of starlight warm his skin. Some light has come from a distance so great, it has taken longer than his six millennia on Earth to reach him here. Now.

He knows what was missing before, with Crowley. It was this warmth, this sense of home. Of basking in Crowley’s light. 

-

It keeps happening for the next few months – the fucking. 

Every night, Aziraphale leaves the bedroom door ajar. It’s a paltry temptation, heavy-handed and desperate, but it’s all he can think to do. And when Crowley slinks into the bedroom, long after dark for a scattered handful of nights every week, he doesn’t seem to hold Aziraphale’s transparency against him. 

It follows no schedule, but Aziraphale knows Crowley well enough that he is able to predict when it will happen with some accuracy. There are hints, cracks in the façade that give Crowley away: a lingering look over dinner, the tense set of his shoulders as he works in the garden, the covert stares Aziraphale pretends not to notice. Most often, he guesses right and Crowley comes to him that night. 

Sometimes he guesses wrong. He lays alone in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling as thwarted wanting burns through him like white-hot coals. 

Crowley still refuses to show Aziraphale his arms. Whether he’s sucking Aziraphale off, opening him with his fingers, or taking him from behind, he employs some inventive alchemy to either keep his shirt on or ensure Aziraphale doesn’t see his arms. At first, Aziraphale can almost ignore it – difficult to focus on details when Crowley is fucking him. As the months pass, however, the distance between them grows.

“Let me see you,” he will plead, reaching for the buttons of Crowley’s shirt. “Let me look at you properly.”

But Crowley will pull away, the panic in his eyes turning to sorrow before Aziraphale can staunch it. The distance grows wider, steeper, and though he may still bring Aziraphale pleasure, he does so with a skittish reserve that breaks the angel’s heart. 

Aziraphale stops asking. 

He can’t set it aside anymore, though. Not when, as Crowley peels off his clothes, his gaze never fails to dart to the scar left by the infernal bullet. The ugly mark spiders across his shoulder and gleams dully like a tarnished coin when the light catches it just right.

-

As spring arrives, Aziraphale begins leafing through his books. He knows he won’t find what he’s looking for because he knows every book verbatim, cover-to-cover, and not a single one of them contains hidden knowledge on angels and demons. 

Still, looking through his books is comforting. A placebo to lessen the curiosity itching at the back of his mind. 

The hellfire should have destroyed Aziraphale. There was no ruse at play, no clever switch to throw the humans off their scent. When Morgan set Aziraphale aflame, he should have burnt out of existence. Like Michael and Uriel. Gone.

Aziraphale closes the book he’s been perusing with a sigh. His reawakened cherubim power should have made no difference to the hellfire. Nothing else had changed, so how had he survived? Of all the enumerable books he’s read over the millennia, not a single one even hinted at a way for angels to gain immunity to hellfire. If such a thing had ever been written, nothing would have stopped Heaven from seeking it out and exploiting it. 

An idea paces on the outskirts of plausibility, too absurd to even consider. He presses a hand to his shoulder, feeling the scabbed scar between his palm and layers of clothes. Even if his suspicions are correct, it makes no difference. After Crowley’s nightly visits, after Aziraphale’s failed attempts to coax him into showing his arms, he had thought it best to wait for the demon to reveal them of his own accord. But perhaps that was selfish and cowardly – a way to foist responsibility onto Crowley.

A twinge of pain races down Aziraphale’s arm, the memory of his wing injury triggering metaphysical nerve endings. He curls his fingers around his shoulder, gripping hard. 

He knows what he has to do.

-

Another week passes before Aziraphale can gather up the courage to put his plan into motion. Even then, as he walks from the crisp spring air into the balmy heat of the garden, he can’t quite banish the jitters. This may not work. Crowley may not see Aziraphale’s offering as an olive branch, but a cry for pity. 

Or – worst of all – he may understand the gesture. And he may not care. 

Aziraphale pauses on the outskirts of the garden, gaze darting to Crowley. The demon is standing at the base of the tree, hands on hips and head tilted up toward the boughs. Leaves are coming in, blanketing the treetop in a dazzling green that would put any of Crowley’s old houseplants to shame. 

Feeling even more nervous – as if the tree is _watching _him – Aziraphale moves across the garden. The feathers of his left wing rasp faintly as they drag in the dark earth. They’ll be a nightmare to clean out. 

“Another stern lecture, I see,” he says as he draws nearer. “Take care, dear boy. If you try to bully that tree too much, it will wise up to how soft-hearted you really are.”

Crowley turns, his frown vanishing as his eyes go wide. Aziraphale hunches his shoulders self-consciously. His three healthy wings fold tighter against his back, but the fourth is splayed out like a white flag of surrender. 

“Angel,” Crowley breathes. “What…”

“Please don’t be frightened,” Aziraphale hastens to say. “I—I know the wings are, ah, a bit much, but there’s no flaming sword. See?” He waves his hands. 

A smile tugs at one side of Crowley’s mouth. “Nice jazz hands.”

Aziraphale pulls a face. “I don’t like the sound of _that. _Far too modern.”

That earns him a chuckle. Crowley wipes his hands off on his trousers and strides toward him, mild concern darkening his features. “So. What’s this, then?”

Aziraphale offers a hand and, after a pause, Crowley takes it. His palm is cool and gritty. They walk toward the gate together.

“Your wing’s filthy,” Crowley notes.

“That would be on account of your garden.” 

“Ah. So, it’s my fault.”

“It is.” Aziraphale risks a smile, though it feels brittle. “That makes tidying it up your job, you know.”

A moment of hesitation, cold in the air – or perhaps it’s the spring chill, rushing over them right out of the garden. Then Crowley squeezes Aziraphale’s hand. “Yeah. I can do that.”

Minutes later, seated on the edge of the bed – his wings take up a lot of space – Aziraphale fights the urge to shiver. Crowley’s fingers are light on his bare back, but every brush against the juncture of feathers and skin sets his nerves alight. In over three decades together, he never thought to explore the boundaries between physical and otherworldly. The barest touch feels more intimate than anything else they’ve done before. 

“These really are in a sorry state,” Crowley says, but his voice is strained. His fingers trace a path down Aziraphale’s spine and Aziraphale grits his teeth against a sigh. “You know if you don’t groom your wings, they’ll wither away and fall off, right?”

“It’s a bit of _dirt, _Crowley,” Aziraphale says tightly. “Not gangrene.”

“Suit yourself,” Crowley sighs. “Can’t say I didn’t try.”

His hands move to the twinned ridges where flesh meets the feathers of Aziraphale’s lower wings, fingers sinking into the scapulars. Aziraphale dips his head and, despite his best efforts, fails to smother a whimper. 

Crowley’s hands go still. Aziraphale squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t need to see the demon’s face to know what he’s thinking, the wavering intention written there. 

“You can,” he says when the silence grows oppressive. “If… if you want.” _Please._

Crowley takes so long to respond that Aziraphale begins to fear he won’t. Then, just as he’s working up the nerve to pull away, Crowley strokes humerus bone of his left wing. 

Aziraphale stiffens. He’s seen the wing, stared at the gold-braided band of feathers where the humans had carved him so many years ago. It must have happened when the cherubim came out during the battle with the Freedom Fighters, though he hadn’t had the presence of mind to notice. When he’d hatched this plan, he expected any touch – even Crowley’s – to send him back to London, back under the blade. He had prepared himself for it as best he could, but he wasn’t ready for this: for the feeling of being covered, held. Cherished.

He sucks in a sharp breath and Crowley stills his hand. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” Aziraphale manages. “No, it feels… rather nice, actually.”

Crowley hums. “Let me know if I should stop.”

They don’t speak for a time, Crowley running his hand idly back and forth across the golden band of feathers. There’s a hard crest where the bone never quite healed properly. A weird itch prickles across his nerves when Crowley rubs his feathers the wrong way over the crest, but that’s the worst of it. 

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to fly again,” Aziraphale admits.

“Is that how it would work?” Crowley asks softly. “The other three couldn’t…?”

“No. The mechanics would be off. I might have enough coordination for short flights, but not enough power for prolonged ones.”

“Oh.” Crowley rubs his thumb over the old injury, carefully, as though he fears he might re-break the bone. “Do you want to?”

Aziraphale shakes off the haze of sensation. It takes a shockingly short time for him to come to his conclusion. “Yes.”

Crowley is quiet. His hands drift over Aziraphale’s wing, vanishing dirt from the coverts and secondaries. Aziraphale lifts his shoulders and ruffles his feathers with a sigh. “That feels nice.”

“I’d been wanting to hear you say that for a long time,” Crowley says, all in a rush. “That you wanted to fly, I mean. That you wanted something to change. Kept imagining what we would do when we left this place. How we’d see the world, just you and me. Together.”

Aziraphale clenches his jaw. Guilt sits sour in the pit of his belly, threatening to overwhelm him. 

“I wanted so badly to _get out,” _Crowley continues. “And when I finally did, it was horrible. Horrible. When those humans caught me and almost…” He cuts himself short. Aziraphale looks over his shoulder to find him staring at his wings, face drained of color. When he raises his gaze to meet Aziraphale’s, his eyes are pleading. “Now, the thought of leaving fucking terrifies me.”

“Oh, love,” Aziraphale says, shifting so they sit face-to-face. He reaches out to cup Crowley’s cheek and Crowley covers his hand with his own. 

“How d’you do it?” he asks. “How can you even think of it?”

“I’ve had a lot of time,” Aziraphale says. He leans forward and presses a kiss to the corner of Crowley’s mouth. “And I have you. Like you have me.”

“You’re saying it will go away. In time.”

“It may lessen.” Aziraphale brushes a thumb over the jut of his cheekbone. “And we have that. We have all the time in the world.”

“I don’t know how long I’ll need,” Crowley confesses. He lowers his head, voice coming out raw. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere.” Aziraphale tilts up Crowley’s head to kiss the thin line of his mouth, gently, until his lips part and he slumps into Aziraphale’s arms. The kiss is long and lingering and when they part, Crowley tucks his face into the crook of his neck. Aziraphale threads his fingers through coarse, short hair, murmuring, “I’ll be right here.”

Crowley extricates himself and reaches for the hem of his jumper with shaking hands. Before Aziraphale can process what the demon is doing, he’s pulled off the jumper and tossed it aside. 

Aziraphale stares, breath caught in his throat. The flesh of Crowley’s arms is shot through with black lines, jagged rivers that carve down his forearms and end just past the creases of his elbows. They put Aziraphale in mind of _kintsugi, _if the lacquer were made of onyx. Broken, mended, beloved. The dark twin to Aziraphale’s own scars.

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathes.

“It’s been like that since… since,” Crowley says, shrugging. “Don’t think it will ever be normal again.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Nah.” Despite his offhand tone, Crowley is quick to assure him. “After the first burn, it didn’t feel like anything. Just won’t go away. I’ve tried miracling it gone, but… I didn’t want you to see. Knew you’d feel guilty. But I don’t mind it.”

“It’s… oh, Crowley, it’s…” How can Aziraphale explain what he feels? How can he articulate the jolt of possessiveness the sight of Crowley’s arms evokes in him, the feeling that his heart is full to bursting with love? 

“It’s not pretty, I know,” Crowley says. “But I’m not bothered. You shouldn’t be, either.”

Aziraphale hears the words under the words, a delicate scaffolding holding up the façade. _Don’t be sad, angel. Don’t be guilty._

“It’s beautiful, Crowley,” he says. He reaches out a hand to trace one dark rivulet from the inside of Crowley’s elbow down to his wrist. The demon shivers. _“You’re _beautiful.”

“Flatterer,” Crowley mutters, but a faint smile of relief banishes the shadows from his face. 

Aziraphale grips Crowley’s upper arms and draws him into a kiss. “My darling.”

He meant it as a soft kiss, undemanding, but Crowley sinks into it like he’s coming unstitched at the seams. His lips part on a sharp breath and Aziraphale mirrors him, more an instinct than a conscious choice. Crowley tilts his head and whimpers as their tongues slide together and _God, _it’s like the last few months of distance are melting away between them.

“Tell me what you need,” he murmurs. “Anything, love.”

Crowley shakes, almost vibrating with spring-coiled energy. “This is—this is good.”

Aziraphale hums and pulls him into another kiss. As their mouths move together, Crowley’s hands climb around Aziraphale’s waist. His fingertips brush the knobs of wing bones and Aziraphale stills, a gasp jolted out of him. 

Crowley’s fingers retreat. “Angel?”

“It doesn’t hurt.” Aziraphale can feel his face getting hot. “It’s… nice, actually. Ethereal nerve endings intersecting with physical—”

_“Oh,” _Crowley breathes. His words almost trip over themselves in their haste. “Can I? I’ll stop if it hurts. I’d never want to hurt—”

“Yes.”

Crowley buries his hands in Aziraphale's feathers. A shock of pure sensation rockets up Aziraphale’s spine and he gasps, folding forward to press his face against the demon's throat. 

“Hadn’t thought,” Crowley says, voice rough, “but of course…”

Aziraphale makes a noise because it’s impossible to be coherent right now. His wings are a physical manifestation of his angelic nature, the most powerful and vulnerable aspect of himself. When the humans had captured him in their net, their touch had felt repulsive, rancid with hate. 

But Crowley loves Aziraphale. He can feel it radiating through the hand on his wing, the hand cradling feather and bone as though they are rarer than anything imagined in Heaven or Hell.

“You love me.” The words slip out of him on a gasp when Crowley strokes the radius bone, ruffling feathers and sending pleasant prickles down his spine. “You still love me.”

Crowley’s hands still. Then, sounding broken, he says, “Of course I do. You couldn’t tell?”

“I didn’t dare.” Aziraphale feels fragile, cracked glass about to cascade down at the slightest touch. “After all I’d done—”

Crowley buries his fingers into the secondary coverts and the words are lost in another gasp. Aziraphale shivers, heart hammering as arousal simmers in his veins. Crowley’s lips are on his throat, his mouth, a faint rasp of teeth in every kiss. 

After what seems an eternity of sweet torment, he draws back, eyes wild. “Of course I still love you, you daft fool. How could you think otherwise?”

The words bubble up in Aziraphale’s throat: _I don’t know how you can. _He doesn’t say it; he only raises and lowers a shoulder. Crowley makes an exasperated noise and kisses him again, hard. Aziraphale bites his lip, spreading his legs and shifting on the bed to alleviate the pressure on his groin. Crowley presses closer, slotting his knee up against the clothed length of his prick. An embarrassingly loud moan escapes him.

“I love you, too,” Aziraphale says in a rush. “In case you weren’t—weren’t sure. I love you. Please, darling, will you fuck me? I want you to fuck me.”

Crowley groans softly against his throat and releases Aziraphale's wings. Before he can protest the loss of that lovely, languorous touch, Crowley vanishes his own clothing with a blink. 

“I was hoping you would fuck me, actually,” he says, a forced dose of levity in his tone. “If you want.”

Aziraphale hesitates. “Crowley. What if I…”

Crowley leans forward to press their brows together. “You couldn’t hurt me, angel. You wouldn’t.” He exhales, all his rigidly-enforced calm shuddering out on a single breath. “Please. I’ve… fuck, I’ve missed you.”

Aziraphale cups Crowley’s face in his hands. His heart is overflowing with love, and he pours as much of it as he can into the next kiss, hungry and desperate and deep. He lifts Crowley abruptly, delighting in the demon’s undignified yelp, and bears him back down onto the bed. He cups his thigh, hiking his leg up around his waist as his cock, hardening but still clothed, ruts against Crowley's naked erection. Crowley drops his head with a moan and grips the sheets until his knuckles go white. Aziraphale is little better, already panting as his cock twitches in the confines of his pants. 

His thoughts must be loud enough to broadcast into the open air, because Crowley claws at his flies and gasps, “Too many bloody clothes.”

“Hang on,” Aziraphale admonishes, letting Crowley’s leg slip away as he sits back to fiddle with the zip. Crowley whines loudly and he rolls his eyes. “Really, dear. Impatience is terribly unbecoming.”

The jab is a farce, a thin veneer over his own arousal. Crowley shoots him a defiant smirk. “Changed your mind, angel?”

“Never,” Aziraphale says instantly. There’s no shame in Crowley calling his bluff, not when they both have something to gain from it. He scoots off the bed to shuck his trousers and pants. Folding them with care – and not a little willful meandering – he crawls back into bed and gathers Crowley in his arms. Crowley goes, muttering blackly about twisted priorities, but he doesn’t protest when Aziraphale pulls his legs around his waist and trails a hand down to fondle his arse. Crowley whimpers, thighs vising around him as his fingers move between his cheeks to circle his hole. 

“Angel,” he gasps, _“please.”_

“I love you.” Aziraphale grips Crowley’s cock with his other hand while he presses one fingertip inside, already slick. Crowley bucks his hips, chasing two directions of sensation, and Aziraphale presses his upper arm against his ribs to better keep him in place. He tightens his hand around Crowley’s cock, slicking the way with a thought, and the demon makes a strangled sound when he buries his finger up to the knuckle. 

Aziraphale drinks in every sound, every minute twitch, his gaze greedy. A feverish blush stains Crowley’s cheeks down to his chest, which heaves with every breath. Aziraphale bends his head to brush his lips across his sternum. “Lovely. You’re so beautiful, my darling.”

Crowley squirms and presses his arse back in an unmistakable plea. “Aziraphale.”

Smiling against his chest, Aziraphale pulls out his finger and adds a second, taking ample time to stretch and tease the demon to whining insensibility. His cock is beginning to leak, pearly precome that Aziraphale thumbs off the tip. He can’t decide which he likes best: languidly stretching the tight heat of Crowley’s hole to take his cock, or toying with his weeping slit until he all but sobs for more. He doubts he will ever know.

Minutes pass like this; every time Crowley’s thighs begin to shake and his body goes tense, Aziraphale backs off, waiting for him to regain a scrap of control before carefully and deliberately shredding it again. He loves this, keeping Crowley delicately balanced on the edge of orgasm. Knowing he has been trusted to give it when he so chooses. 

“Azir—” Crowley breaks off as Aziraphale crooks his fingers and finds that place inside him, the one that makes him jerk and gasp. _“Fuck, _angel.”

Aziraphale slides his hand down to the base of Crowley’s cock and lowers his head. The first taste on his lips is bitter salt, precome smearing across his tongue as he takes him in his mouth. He strokes Crowley’s prostate as he suckles his tip, and Crowley is shaking and swearing and scraping his heels helplessly against the bed. 

“Angel,” he gasps, frantic, “angel, stop—I’m gonna—”

Aziraphale lets Crowley’s cock slip from his mouth and watches him intently, ready to let Crowley come on his face if need be. He would love that, but Crowley has made his needs very clear, and this is about tending to those needs. The demon is tense for a long moment, panting as he backs away from the precipice of his orgasm. His cock is hard and flushed and glistening and it almost feels criminal that Aziraphale can’t swallow him down and take everything Crowley can give him.

“Another time,” he allows.

“What?”

“Nothing, my darling.” Aziraphale presses a parting kiss to the crease of his thigh and draws away, taking his own hard prick in hand. “Just making plans for the future.”

Crowley huffs and rolls his hips. “Can’t think about later. Want you to fuck me _now.”_

Fighting a smile, Aziraphale withdraws his fingers and lines himself up against Crowley’s hole. His wings arch to mantle around them both, cocooning them from the rest of the world. “Yes?”

_“Yes—”_

Crowley sounds as if he’s about to say something rude, but his words are lost in a moan as Aziraphale thrusts home. He’s open and loose from Aziraphale’s attentions, and Aziraphale bottoms out with a few short thrusts. He clenches his eyes shut and snaps his hips, lost in the tight clutch of Crowley’s body.

Crowley is babbling, a stream broken by noises in time with Aziraphale’s thrusts. “Fuck, I missed—missed you so much, angel. _Ungh, _fuck, again. Like that, just like—that.” 

“Love you,” Aziraphale grits out, and shifts his angle. Crowley sobs as the next thrust glances off his prostate. His cock is jerking, leaking freely, and it takes only a handful of long, deep thrusts before Aziraphale feels the telltale tremor run down the length of the demon’s body to coil tight around his cock. Crowley cries out and comes, shuddering, untouched. His hole tightens around Aziraphale’s cock with each spasm, and Aziraphale is hurtled, powerless, to his peak in the blink of an eye. He comes with a low groan, wings shaking and cinching protectively around them.

After, Aziraphale pulls out and moves down to lap greedily at Crowley’s hole. The demon whimpers with each pass of his tongue, and drags him back up into a kiss as soon as he can catch him. Aziraphale goes, smiling against his mouth.

Hours later, as the setting sun seeps through the bedroom window to paint vibrant hues across their bed, they lie together and talk quietly about this and that. Mundane things, pointedly unimportant until they suddenly aren’t. 

“The hellfire should have destroyed me,” Aziraphale muses. Later, he will try to recall what brought on that dark thread of conversation and come up blank. “When Mor… when the Freedom Fighters…”

Crowley nuzzles impossibly closer and curls an arm around his waist. “Think I have an idea.” 

“You do?”

“Hnn. Yeah.” Their legs are tangled together; one of Crowley’s bony heels is digging into Aziraphale’s calf, but he doesn’t mind. “S’you and me. The pair of us. Your heavenly fire didn’t destroy me, right? ‘Course the hellfire wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Because…” Aziraphale trails off, swallows past a sudden lump in his throat. He tightens his arms around Crowley. “Because of us.”

“We were on our own side before we broke ties with our head offices.” His voice is matter-of-fact, as if the answer is obvious and Aziraphale has been willfully ignoring it. “We’ve only grown closer since. We’re neither of us exactly what we were, before.”

“We’re something different entirely. Not angels, not demons.”

“Not people,” Crowley adds sleepily. “But… maybe closer. S’mthing new.”

“Incredible,” Aziraphale breathes. He presses his lips to the top of Crowley’s head, whispers the words into his hair: “Crowley, you’re incredible.”

_“We,” _Crowley corrects. He snakes a hand around to stroke Aziraphale’s wing, letting him feel all the love he’s too exhausted to articulate. Scarcely a minute passes before he is asleep, still touching his wing. 

Aziraphale brushes a finger over one of the onyx lacquer-cracks splintering up Crowley’s arm. He gathers him close and holds him until sleep tugs him under, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt a little bad after realizing that this chapter is all unnecessary sex scenes but then I remembered this is fanfiction and I'm allowed.


	13. leaving the garden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm Zingiberis/Ineffablegame on Tumblr.

As spring grows green and lush, Elena and Adam visit the cottage. They bring news of the world outside, gifts as the ration system deteriorates and international trade reopens. They’re gestures more than anything, as Aziraphale and Crowley can miracle any food they like into their pantry, but it’s the thought that counts. 

“I can see why you’ve got such a sweet tooth, Uncle Aziraphale,” Elena babbles between mouthfuls of lemon tart. She’s beginning to soften around the edges, the rawboned sharpness of starvation giving way to a healthy glow. 

“I’m glad you understand,” Aziraphale says. “The luxuries of fine dining are often under-appreciated by smaller minds.”

“Oi.” Crowley jabs Aziraphale with his fork. “Cheek.”

“Truth,” Aziraphale says primly. He spears a bite of lemon tart, pops it into his mouth, and sighs with bliss. Crowley’s ears go pink and he coughs into his cup of tea.

Later, bringing a platter of biscuits out to the garden, Aziraphale catches a glimpse of Adam and Elena standing beside a trellis of clematis blooms. Adam lifts a finger to his lips, endearingly boyish, and plucks a flower from the vine. He tucks it behind Elena’s ear, a starburst of rose against her dark hair. She rolls her eyes and tugs him into a quick kiss.

As the sun sinks beyond the horizon, they gather around a campfire Crowley has whisked into existence. Elena sets her marshmallow alight, blows out the flames, and offers the charred goo to Adam with an impish grin. Adam huffs his disapproval and takes an obliging bite, wincing at the heat. 

“What rot,” Crowley mutters under his breath. The firelight dances in his eyes, illuminating his scowl at Adam with a hellish gleam. 

Aziraphale entwines his fingers with Crowley’s and presses a shy kiss to his cheek. Crowley turns so their mouths meet, hungry and affirming and done too quickly. 

Hours later, in bed, Aziraphale stares at the ceiling and tries to ignore the fact that they’ve let two humans spend the night at the cottage. He made the offer on an impulse, but now he’s beginning to regret it. 

Crowley snakes a hand down to clasp his. “It’s fine, angel. I’m here.”

“I know,” Aziraphale says, but he can’t crush the tremor in his tone. “I understand it logically, of course, but…”

“Don’t worry,” Crowley murmurs, burying his face against Aziraphale’s neck. His power nudges at him, quietly urging him toward sleep. His own voice is sleep-slurred when he adds, “S’just the Antichrist. Who’s gone all soppy over our niece. Nothing t’fear.”

“I know,” Aziraphale repeats, trying his best to mean it. He brushes his fingers along the shell of Crowley’s ear, across the serpent sigil. “Thank you, my dear.”

The next morning, as they are preparing to leave, Elena throws her arms around Aziraphale in a fierce hug. “I’m so happy for you,” she whispers in his ear. 

Aziraphale tightens his arms around her. “Thank you. Be safe.”

“You, too.” Elena plants a kiss on his cheek before extricating herself to hug Crowley. “See you later, Auntie.”

“See you, little viper. Keep that boy in line, yeah?”

“Always.”

As the Land Rover trundles down the path, Crowley turns to Aziraphale. “If he hurts her, we’ll have to kill him. Right?”

“Of course, dear,” Aziraphale says. “Kill the Antichrist. Whatever you say.”

-

On their next visit, Elena and Adam bring a laptop. It’s a bit newfangled for Aziraphale’s tastes, so sleek and slim he fears he will break it on accident and positively bursting with superfluous apps. Aziraphale, who has only ever used a computer to balance his books, can’t imagine why they would need anything more than a calculator and an empty notepad. Even Excel has too many bells and whistles.

“It’s so we can email each other,” Elena explains, navigating effortlessly to one of the thousands of icons that populate the screen. “I can send you news. You can see what’s happening outside now, too, now that you’ve got the internet.”

Aziraphale slants her a wary side-eye. He had internet at the bookshop, years ago, but it was the sort that played a quaint dial tone whenever he connected and loaded at a pace derided by slugs around the world. This laptop looks entirely too modern for that. 

“You’ll love it,” Elena says with conviction. “Trust me.”

Aziraphale tinkers with the thing, more to humor her than anything. He finds, much to his surprise, that the icons aren’t all useless. One opens a delightful little game where he can play cards by himself. Hours after he discovers it, Crowley walks in to find him staring intently at the screen.

“Is that _solitaire?” _he asks.

“Is that what it’s called?” Aziraphale mumbles, distracted. “Well. It’s a jolly good time.”

Crowley makes a sound like all the air is slowly leaking out of him and slinks from the room. Several more hours pass before Aziraphale looks up from his game and realizes it’s gone past midnight. 

Elena makes good on her promise and sends emails. She brings news of the outside world, updates from her and Adam, recipes she thinks Aziraphale will like, and countless videos of cats. 

The internet, Aziraphale learns, is enamored with cats.

-

Of all the oddities to come of the world almost ending a second time, the last thing Aziraphale thought to consider was having the Prince of Hell as a regular houseguest. 

And yet – despite all laws of nature – that very thing seems to occur.

Aziraphale trundles into the kitchen one morning, a bit peckish from a rather athletic bout of morning sex with Crowley. His quilted robe hangs open, unbelted, and his slippers pad softly across the kitchen tile. He wears nothing else. He’s in his own home, after all. It feels silly to be decent when there’s every chance he’s going to have a nibble, go back to bed, and pick up where he and Crowley left off.

“Do you alwayszz make such an effort?” Beelzebub asks. “Or iszz it second nature by now?”

Aziraphale almost trips over his own feet and bashes his brains out on the tile. Yelping incoherently, he snatches up the sides of his robe and yanks it shut. The Prince of Hell, seated at the kitchen table with a mug half-raised to their lips, shoots him a look of cross confusion. 

“My lord!” he says, voice half an octave too high. “To—to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Beelzebub’s nostrils flare. A sneer pulls back their lips. “You stink of Crowley.”

_Thank Someone you didn’t get here ten minutes ago, _Aziraphale thinks dizzily. “You haven’t answered my question.”

Beelzebub shrugs, as if it’s perfectly natural to appear in your hereditary enemy’s kitchen without so much as a by-your-leave. “I wanted coffee.”

“I… didn’t know you partook.”

“I didn’t.” A long, slow drink, draining the steaming mug to its dregs. Beelzebub sets down the empty cup, snaps their fingers, and refills it. “But thiszz concoction workszz wonderszz for staying alert.”

“And you had to have coffee in our cottage because…?”

“Where elsezz would I have it?”

Annoyance wins over caution and Aziraphale rolls his eyes. “My lord, you are being deliberately obtuse.”

Beelzebub glares, but there is no vow of death or disembowelment in their beady eyes. After almost being destroyed by the Freedom Fighters together, Aziraphale senses the Prince’s grudging respect for him. No doubt they would flay a lesser being alive for such impudence.

After a lengthy pause, Beelzebub grits out the words like chunks of gravel between their teeth. “There are no other powerful beingszz in London. You might stink of that pathetic worm, but you are the closest thing to respectable company I can find.”

“Um… thank you?”

“Shut up,” Beelzebub spits. They raise the mug for another drink, downing the pitch-black brew like a shot of spirits. Aziraphale regards them warily. That much caffeine can’t be safe in such a tiny body.

“Angel,” Crowley calls, “did you get lost in there? If I recall, someone promised to fuck me through the mattress—”

He strides into the kitchen, wearing nothing but an easy grin and his Eden dress code finery. When he spies Beelzebub, he stops with an audible _squeak _of bare feet on tile. Aziraphale gives him a wide-eyed, close-lipped smile of mortification.

Beelzebub cocks their head, eyes narrowed as they rake over Crowley. “Why does yours curve like that? Is it malformed?”

-

Aziraphale sets some boundaries after that. Beelzebub is only allowed to visit the cottage on the condition that they ask for permission. One week in advance.

“Do you think I should change it to two weeks?” Aziraphale frets.

“I think you should change it to _never,” _Crowley says darkly. 

Aziraphale huffs and reaches over to pat the lump that is Crowley buried under the duvet. “Come now, dear boy. Stop sulking.”

“My former boss saw my bits,” the lump grumbles. “Curling up to waste away is a perfectly appropriate response.”

“There, there. If it’s any consolation, they’re quite lovely bits.”

The duvet unfurls and Crowley pokes his head out, hair mussed and eyes squinty under the assault of the bedroom light. “You’re mocking me.”

“Of course I am,” Aziraphale says. “You’re ridiculous. And I adore you.”

“Shut up,” Crowley grumbles, but he doesn’t protest when Aziraphale draws him into a soft kiss. 

“I was thinking we could start a monthly game night,” Aziraphale says when they part. “We could do drinks and nibbles.”

Crowley screws up his face in disgust. “Never. _Never, _angel.”

“Perhaps games. What do you think of charades?”

Crowley slumps sideways to sprawl across the bed like a swooning Victorian maiden. “Menace. Traitor. _Judas.”_

“Now, that’s hitting below the belt.”

“You know what else is below the belt? Hmm? My bits. My bits the Prince of Hell _saw.”_

“Oh, my poor, melodramatic darling,” Aziraphale says, lying down beside him. He runs his index finger through the demon’s hair, snaring a fiery curl. “How _ever _will you survive?”

“D’you think there’s something to that?” Crowley asks, clearly picking up a thread from a past conversation. “When they said it looked malformed? Is there something wrong with my cock?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, “they clearly haven’t got a frame of reference. Besides…” He lowers his voice to the coal-rough timbre Crowley likes so well. “I rather like your cock. Particularly when it’s inside me.”

Crowley cracks open an eye to regard him. “Think you can distract me with your seductive wiles, angel?”

“I should hope so.” Aziraphale trails a fingertip down his cheek, thumbs the hollow of his collarbone. “Unless you find Beelzebub more… _diverting _than me.”

It’s a blatant attempt, comically bad, but Crowley takes the bait. His lips are pliant against Aziraphale’s, his body yielding as the angel turns him onto his back and skates his hands down his ribs. Crowley bows up into his touch with a sigh, and Aziraphale devotes the next hour to making him forget the last. 

-

Months later, Adam and Elena visit. And their appearance happens to coincide with Beelzebub’s. The Prince of Hell is none-too-impressed with their Dark Lord’s progeny, but they soften when Elena presents them with a packet of Union coffee beans. 

“It’s quality coffee,” she promises. “Nothing like that Café Nero shite you love.”

“At least it’szz not Starbuckszz,” Beelzebub grumbles. Aziraphale has the disconcerting goldfish sensation of connecting dots that have arisen outside its bowl. The Prince of Hell and the witch are _friends._

After more stilted greetings, the group convenes around the kitchen table with mugs of tea and, for Beelzebub, a pot of soot-dark coffee. Aziraphale brings out a chocolate and hazelnut tart to share. 

“So, uh.” Adam clears his throat and glances at Elena, who nods. His eyes dart between Aziraphale and Crowley before he lifts his chin, jaw set. “As you know, Elena and I have been together for a while now.”

Aziraphale lifts a curious brow. “Yes?”

“And we… We have news. For everyone.”

“Oh, flames,” Crowley says, “are you asking for our approval to ask for her hand in marriage? I thought it was clear that you’ll never have our blessing.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says warningly, knife poised over the tart.

“First off,” Elena says, “we’re having far too much fun scandalizing Adam’s constituents to ever get married.” Adam nods emphatically. “Secondly, Auntie, your not-blessing is properly demonic, so. Well done.” Aziraphale hands her a plate of tart and she spears a generous bite. “Adam? Over to you.”

Adam bites his lip, looking endearingly nervous. “We’re not getting married, no. We’re having a baby.”

Silence falls over the table. Then Crowley drops his teacup with a clatter_, _mouth agape. Aziraphale stills the knife, stunned, tart forgotten. Beelzebub, unmoved, takes a scalding sip of coffee. 

“Oh!” Aziraphale says, finding his voice at last. “Oh, Elena, Adam, that’s wonderful!”

“A baby,” Crowley murmurs, eyes wide with shock. Then, more loudly, “A baby? You’re having a baby?”

“Yes,” Elena says. “I’m fourteen weeks along.”

“That’s wonderful!” Aziraphale gushes. He sets down the knife to clasp her hands, beaming. “Oh, my dear girl, you’ve no idea—this is such good news! Are you all prepared? Have you set up the nursery? Do you know if it’s a boy or girl?”

“No to all those things,” Adam says. “We’re scrambling. Everything is completely mad.”

“We’re going to let the sex be a surprise,” Elena says firmly. “Fuck gender roles. And later, when they’re a teenager, we’ll have a ceremony in a field along the ley lines where they choose their pronouns.”

Aziraphale chuckles, bewildered, but Adam only shakes his head. “She’s dead serious.”

“Oh, my. How… novel.”

“The naming,” Beelzebub says. All eyes turn to the Prince of Hell. “There must be a naming ceremony.”

“Uh,” Adam says, “well, yes… we’ve got a boy’s name picked out, but if it’s a girl—”

“Lucy.”

Another moment of perplexed silence. Then Aziraphale ventures, “Er, my lord… why Lucy?”

Beelzebub scowls as if he is being deliberately stupid. “For her grandsire, of courszze.”

“Are you…” Adam trails off, mouth ajar. “Are you suggesting I name my child after _Lucifer?”_

“He iszz your father,” Beelzebub points out. “No matter how stupid you are about it.”

“No. Absolutely not. We’re not naming a baby after the devil.”

“Now, hang on,” Elena says. “I don’t mind it so much. It’s kind of cute.”

Beelzebub glowers at her with mortified fury. “The Dark Lord iszz _not _cute.”

“I’m writing it down,” Elena says cheerfully. “What do you think a good middle name would be? ‘Morningstar?’”

Aziraphale chuckles feebly as Adam shakes his head and repeats that no, they are absolutely not naming their child Lucy. The angel drifts his gaze over to Crowley and feels his heart stutter. Crowley is staring at the pair of humans, eyes red-rimmed and shining with unshed tears. 

“Crowley!” he cries. “Are you quite alright?”

“I’m f-f-fine,” Crowley says, voice thick. He crams his knuckles against his eyes to stymie the tears. “Just—just got something in my eye, that’s all.”

“Oh, you silly old serpent.” Aziraphale gently pries one hand away to rest on the table, covered by his own. “Your poor heart.”

“St-stop,” Crowley blubbers halfheartedly. “Shut it. It’s only—only that I’m so pr-proud of the little viper. Living so diligently in sin. You’re a credit to me, s’all.”

“It’s not all, actually,” Elena says. “We know it’s early days, but. We were hoping you two would be the godfathers.”

Aziraphale is able to keep a tight leash on his emotions, but only just. Crowley gives up all pretense of not being a gibbering mess of feelings. He has always been the tenderhearted one, after all.

-

Days later, Aziraphale is reading _‘Folktales of All Nations’ _in the garden. The tree has grown immense, its boughs stretching over the cottage, its foliage lush. Though it casts a cooling shadow, none of the plants in its vicinity seem wanting. If anything, they grow more rapidly than the others. After gaining Crowley’s permission to read in the garden, Aziraphale had to persuade a rather stubborn rhubarb plant to scoot a few feet to the left in order to settle out his picnic blanket. Probably the rhubarb will snitch, but Aziraphale is sure Crowley will side with him. 

Well, mostly sure. Seventy-five percent sure.

Sitting on his blanket with his back propped against the tree trunk, Aziraphale soaks up the comfort distilled in the garden. A breeze rolls through, ruffling the leaves and dappling sunlight across his face. Squinting, he looks up. Although it has outstripped any natural tree in its speed of growth, this tree appears to flower normally. Bundles of delicate flowers are blooming amid the leaves. Each has five petals, the curled edges blushing pink. 

“Cheek,” Aziraphale sighs, lowering his gaze to turn a page. He’s certain the tree hears and understands him, but he doesn’t care. _We’re on our own side._

“Angel.”

Aziraphale looks up to see Crowley stalking through the garden, hands shoved deep in his pockets. There’s a tight, fidgety air about him, one that makes Aziraphale close his book as he draws nearer. 

“Crowley?” he asks. “Is everything alright?”

“’Course,” Crowley says, but the tic of a muscle in his jaw betrays him. He stops before Aziraphale, standing awkwardly for a few seconds too long. When he sits, it’s like a bag of sticks being emptied on the picnic blanket. 

“If you say so,” Aziraphale concedes.

“Cuppa?” Crowley blurts out.

“Oh. Um, yes. That would be lovely.”

Crowley snaps his fingers and miracles two cups of tea out of the ether. He hands one to Aziraphale, who accepts it with a smile. Before the angel can take a sip, he interjects, “Wait, wait. Actually, wine. Let’s have wine.”

Aziraphale blinks. “It’s not gone past noon.”

“Since when did that stop you?” Crowley asks, and turns the cups of tea into glasses of wine with another snap. Aziraphale lifts his for a hasty sip, lest the demon change his mind again. Crowley stares at him, amber eyes unblinking, eyebrows drawn down into something like a scowl. 

“My dear, you look a bit… manic. It’s unsettling.”

“Been thinking,” Crowley begins. He takes a bracing swig of wine. Something troubling is afoot. “Been thinking about… the little viper. And the Antichrist.”

“Oh. Well. It is a little… odd, but I’m sure Adam will be—”

“I think we can both agree that I won with the little viper,” Crowley interjects, as if he hasn’t heard a word Aziraphale said. 

Aziraphale can only stare, confusion warring with indignation. “Beg pardon?”

“I won. Between your good influence and my bad, I prevailed.”

“I wasn’t aware it was a competition,” Aziraphale says wryly. “And for the record, I disagree. I rather think the whole point of our experience with Warlock is that we’re rubbish mentors.”

“Nah,” Crowley says, waving him off. “The little viper is living in sin with no intention of rectifying it. Basically a middle finger to your old lot. So…” He trails off, compresses his lips. Just as concern begins niggling at Aziraphale, he forces out the words in a rush: “Ithinkweshouldmakeitofficial. As, uh, a concession prize. For you.”

Silence stretches between them, a taut wire vibrating at a register beyond their preternatural senses. Even the whistle of wind through the leaves has gone quiet, as if the tree itself is listening. It probably is. Shock has paralyzed Aziraphale – shock and the awful, queasy fear that he has misunderstood. That, despite how well he knows Crowley, they are suddenly speaking completely different languages. 

When he finds his voice, all he can say is, “What?”

Crowley sets aside his glass and rests a shaky hand on his knee. “I love you, Aziraphale. I want to be with you forever.” His mouth slants into a smile, totally at odds with the fear in his eyes. “If you’ll have me.”

Aziraphale lays his hand atop Crowley’s and threads their fingers together. Above them, wind moves through the leaves and scatters the scent of apple blossoms.

-

The wedding is a simple, quiet affair. It has to be, given that neither of them are ready to leave the cottage or have more guests than strictly necessary. But in spite of all that, everything is as close to perfect as can be.

Elena is the one to walk Crowley down the aisle, sniffling and rubbing her eyes and claiming pregnancy hormones all the way. 

“I can’t believe you dickheads got married the one time I _couldn’t _get bladdered,” she blubbers after the ceremony. “I hate you, Auntie. And I love you so much.”

Crowley laughs and presses a kiss to the top of her head. “That’s my girl.”

Adam is in charge of organizing the yard and procuring refreshments, which he takes to with gusto. The food is impeccable, savory dishes and sweet cakes and buttery pastries and exquisite wine Aziraphale can barely keep his hands off of. Lawn chairs form a makeshift aisle, above which fairy lights tied to poles wink like Crowley’s own stars. An archway decorated with flowers from the garden stands over them as they make vows to each other. They have no priest; there’s no need of one, not when their words are spoken in the language of Heaven and Hell.

Crowley is gorgeous in a black jumpsuit and scarlet evening wrap. He’s grown out his hair so it brushes his shoulders, arranged in crimson waves that gleam gold in the afternoon sunlight. Aziraphale, who had thought himself quite dapper in his beige wedding suit and powder blue bowtie, can’t stop staring.

After, as they meander around the table eating cake and drinking champagne, Aziraphale scans the meagre crowd and feels his heart sink. He hadn’t expected Anathema to attend, but her absence still strikes like a blow to the chest. Crowley, sensing his sorrow, wraps an arm around him and pulls him close.

“I’m sorry, angel,” he murmurs.

Aziraphale shakes his head, lips pulled into a tight smile. “Don’t fret, my dear. This is perfect as it is.”

Crowley is about to say something when Beelzebub approaches. Their presence makes the demon clam up and shrink behind Aziraphale, who smiles gently and nods a greeting. “My lord. Thank you for attending our nuptials.”

Beelzebub rolls their eyes. “It waszz a soppy affair. But the cake waszz passable.”

“Thank you.”

“That’szz enough small talk,” Beelzebub says, waving as if to dispel a foul odor. “To businesszz. Cherubim Aziraphale, I again implore you to usezz your power to further our causezz. The angelszz chafe against me as their leader. You are the perfect choicezz for the role. Help uszz make a new world alongside the humanszz.”

Aziraphale is momentarily speechless. “My lord…”

“Now, hang on,” Crowley says, slithering around Aziraphale to plant himself between the angel and the Prince of Hell. “Aziraphale’s told you what he thinks. If he changes his mind, he’ll tell _you, _not the other way around. Leave it be for now.” He squares his shoulders, resolute. Aziraphale thinks his heart is at risk for bursting with love. 

Beelzebub boggles, as if a cockroach they’ve been trying to stamp out for the past six millennia has turned around and given them the two-fingered salute. Their mouth hangs ajar for a handful of seconds before they nod, eerily magnanimous. “Of coursezz. My mistake.”

“It’s no bother,” Aziraphale adds. “We’re very pleased to have you here. Feel free to have another slice of cake, it really is quite scrumptious.”

“Yeszz.” Beelzebub turns toward the feast on the other side of the yard, looking a bit poleaxed. “Cake.”

Without another word, the Prince of Hell wanders back into the festivities. The moment they are out of earshot, Crowley sags like all the strength has gone out of him. Aziraphale catches him under the armpits and hauls him upright.

“They’re going to flay me alive,” his husband – _husband! _– mutters, winding his arms around Aziraphale’s shoulders and holding fast. 

Aziraphale pats his head gingerly. “Oh, please. They quite like me. I don’t think they would dare hurt you.”

“How did you get one of the most powerful demons in all of Hell to _like _you? How? I busted my arse for six millennia and they never even deigned to grant me a ‘well done’!” 

“You didn’t really, though, did you,” Aziraphale chides. “Neither of us did. We’ve never been model angels or demons, really.” Crowley gives a conceding grunt and Aziraphale tightens his arms around him, swaying them into a slow dance. “Besides, nobody can afford to go without friends these days. Not even Beelzebub.”

Crowley huffs, kisses Aziraphale’s cheek, and joins the dance. And, while Aziraphale is mostly content to drift off in the matched rhythm of their feet, one dark corner of his mind hoards Beelzebub’s words like ancient, invaluable texts for later inspection. 

He had never thought it possible to make peace with the humans, but it seems exactly that is happening now, in the outside world. He could join them. He could help.

And he could give Crowley the freedom he so desperately needs.

-

Crowley is insistent that they have ‘a proper wedding night.’ Aziraphale isn’t complaining.

“It’s crucial, the wedding night,” he says. “Absolutely imperative. Once we consummate it, the marriage can’t be annulled.”

“I’m not certain it works that way,” Aziraphale says. Strictly speaking, the vows they made transcend feeble human laws and customs, but he doesn’t point that out. “And besides, why do you think I would ever want to annul this? I didn’t marry you on a whim, dear boy.”

“Can’t be too careful,” Crowley says cheerfully. “You might grow bored of being married. You were enjoying being a bit of a slag, shacking up with a demon for the past thirty years and all.”

“Oh, do shut up,” Aziraphale says, swatting him on the bum. “You weren’t exactly a pinnacle of evil, after all. _‘Oh, please, my dearest darling angel, I want to be with you forev—‘”_

His words break off in a barking laugh as Crowley shoves him toward the bed, kicks the door shut, and leaps in after him. After so much wine and champagne, the entire world has gone soft and smeared and desperately funny, and he is _married, _he is about to go to bed with his _husband, _and it’s all so ridiculous and incredible that he could cry if he wasn’t so busy laughing. 

Aziraphale is still giggling when Crowley straddles him, vanishing their clothing with frenetic haste, and drags him into a filthy, demanding kiss. As the demon thrusts his tongue into Aziraphale’s mouth and slides a hand down to stroke his prick, Aziraphale tries to muster some indignation over his clothes and fails. 

“Wasn’t joking about that,” Crowley says. “The ‘forever’ bit.” His free hand moves down Aziraphale’s chest, thumb and forefinger toying with his nipple until he arches up into the touch with a moan. “In case there was any confusion.”

“N-not at all,” Aziraphale gets out, and he might say something more, but Crowley retreats from the kiss to quest his lips downward. His hand curls around Aziraphale’s ribs as he laves his tongue over the teased, reddened nipple, then sucks it between his teeth. A noise escapes Aziraphale, one that might be embarrassing if he hadn’t adored Crowley for thousands of years, if they hadn’t just bound their essences together for the rest of eternity. 

Something comes to his attention, distantly, through the fog of sensation – that, while he is quickly growing hard, Crowley is not. In fact, as the demon rolls his hips, quite shamelessly humping Aziraphale’s thigh, a telltale slickness paints his skin. Aziraphale draws a sharp breath.

“You’re,” he begins, voice gone hoarse – both from Crowley’s hands on him and the realization of what he’s done. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” Crowley rasps. “Okay?”

_“Yes,” _Aziraphale breathes, and sits up suddenly. Crowley practically squawks, thrown off balance, but Aziraphale catches him around the waist and holds him steady. With a bit of squirming, the demon situates himself in his lap, legs spread deliciously wide. 

“Steady on,” he says. A feverish blush has spread from the bridge of his nose to the tips of his ears. 

Aziraphale palms his stomach, fingers skimming the hollows of his pelvis. “Can I—”

“Yes, _obviously, _that’s why I made the Effort.” Crowley’s tone is terse, but all the bravado shivers out of him when Aziraphale presses two fingers between his splayed thighs. His cunt is slick and warm, the folds parting around Aziraphale’s fingers, and Crowley huffs out a breath as he slips inside. The demon folds forward like he’s been gut-punched.

“We’ve never done this,” Aziraphale muses. “Not like this.”

“Nev—never found the guts to try,” Crowley manages. “Didn’t seem like… something we could do.”

The unspoken words hover over them with a palpable, noxious weight: _I didn’t think you would want to._ Because, in the midst of his terror, Aziraphale might have objected.

Aziraphale pushes aside the all-too familiar guilt, intent on Crowley. This, now, bringing him pleasure – that’s what matters. He buries his fingers deeper, delighting in his husband’s hitching breaths, the jerking thrusts of his hips as he grinds down. Aziraphale’s hand is properly wet, now, and it isn’t so much a burst of inspiration as the next logical step to twist his wrist, just a little, and sweep his thumb up against Crowley’s clit.

_“Fuck,” _Crowley exhales. “Yes, yes, again, like that.”

Aziraphale obeys, moving his thumb back and forth over the sensitive nub with varying degrees of speed and pressure. He can’t stop watching Crowley’s face. His lips are parted on punching gasps and his skin is flushed and sweaty, strands of hair falling forward to stick to his brow. Aziraphale reaches up with his free hand to push them back, tenderly, behind Crowley’s ear. For an instant, the demon looks torn between fondness and exasperation, but both are swiftly banished as he groans, bucking, orgasm crashing over him. He slumps against Aziraphale for a beat, panting.

“Gorgeous,” Aziraphale murmurs. “Utterly divine.”

“Rude,” Crowley gasps. 

“Can you go again? I want to taste you.”

Crowley groans and nods frantically and Aziraphale tips him to lie back on the bed. He shuffles back to kneel between Crowley’s spread thighs. His prick bobs between his own legs, neglected, but that’s easy to ignore when his husband is slick and open before him, still shivering in the aftershocks of orgasm and already begging for more. He lies down and holds Crowley open while he thrusts his tongue inside, lapping up his slickness. 

_“Fuck, _angel,” Crowley babbles, “I fucking love you.”

Aziraphale answers with a hum and drags his tongue over Crowley’s clit, then sucks it between his lips. He has just enough foresight to move a hand up to the demon’s hips, pinning him in place as he moans, hips jolting, and comes again. 

“Inside me, now,” Crowley pants, fingers fluttering in Aziraphale’s hair. “Get inside me, angel, _please.”_

Aziraphale wastes no time. Rising up to his knees, he grips Crowley under the arse and lifts him. The demon nods frantically, thighs going around Aziraphale’s waist as he thrusts into wet, tight heat. He’s lost count of the number of times he has touched Crowley, and there is something so unbearably lovely in how completely he has mapped out the demon’s body, how he knows it down to the atoms. But this is new and exciting and he’s pulling out and driving back in, clutching for the last of his composure as it threatens to slip away. Crowley throws his head back and grabs at the sheets as Aziraphale pounds into him with deep, slow thrusts, chasing his own pleasure, but it’s only when Crowley pries a hand away from the sheets to stroke his clit in time with his thrusts that Aziraphale loses control. He rolls his hips one last time and buries himself to the root, coming and coming, gasping and disoriented. Crowley follows him a moment later, moaning loudly as he clenches around him. 

“Fuck,” Crowley breathes. _“Fuck, _angel, that was…”

Aziraphale pulls out and flops down beside him, panting. “I think we managed to consummate that quite… effectively.”

“Yeah.” Crowley looks wickedly pleased. “No getting rid of me now, _husband_. You’re properly stuck with me.”

“Oh, dear.” He leans forward to kiss Crowley, who makes a thready little moan at the taste of himself. “Well. I think I can handle that.”

-

Some months after the wedding, Aziraphale wanders into the kitchen to find a letter resting neatly on the table. 

For the briefest moment, fear renders him motionless, a cold trickle of dread creeping down his spine. Sweat dampens his palms and his lungs are suddenly squeezing around too much air. Memories flash before his eyes, a horrific film reel: Sandalphon fighting the Freedom Fighters, Gabriel murdering Newt on the beach. 

Before he can work himself into a proper panic, however, he notices the aura emanating off the paper. Elena’s aura. She and Adam had visited just yesterday; she must have left it last night.

Curious but still wary, Aziraphale approaches the table and squints at the words printed in Elena’s tidy handwriting. He doesn’t dare touch it, not yet. 

_‘Uncle Aziraphale,’ _the writing says, _‘I’m sorry I had to show you this way. I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t work up the nerve. I went to see Morgan.’_

Aziraphale takes a stumbling step back, as if the letter has professed a desire to burst into flames. He hasn’t let himself dwell on Morgan for months; every time he does, he remembers the look of misery on the boy’s face before he lowered his torch and set Aziraphale aflame. Cherubim rage and a deep, disemboweling sorrow churn inside him, clotting into an emotion he can’t bear to look at too closely. 

He goes to the garden in search of Crowley, calls him in and explains. The demon’s eyes widen for a split second before darting toward the letter to scan its contents. 

Then, sounding almost ashamed, he says, “I want to see him, angel. I miss him.”

Aziraphale nods, jaw set against the traitorous words. _So do I. _“Are you certain?”

“Yes.” Dear Crowley, brave Crowley, always ready to race headfirst into heartbreak. “If you don’t want to, I understand.”

“No.” Aziraphale shakes his head. “No, I… I want to. Only I just…”

The words evaporate and he stares at the floor. Crowley cups a hand to his cheek. “If it's too much, let me know. I’ll get us out.”

“Thank you, my dear.”

Hands clasped, they approach the table. Aziraphale reaches out and touches his fingertips to the crisp edge of the letter. 

The vision crashes over them before he can brace himself. They are in a bleak, grey place, all concrete walls and bullet-proof partitions and steel bars. Aziraphale blinks, dizzy, and sees a reflection in the glass panel before him – Elena’s. He is a passenger in her mind, watching the memory being woven together before her eyes. 

The hulking _clunk _of a deadbolt being pulled open snags his attention. Guards escort Morgan into the room on the other side of the partition. Despite almost two years in prison, he looks healthier than Aziraphale has ever seen him. The malnourishment that once engraved his face like mountain crags has been banished. He carries more weight around his middle, the faintest hint of a paunch. Even now, staying confined at Adam Young’s command, Morgan is fed and treated better than he was during the war.

The guards bid Morgan sit and he shuffles to comply. His hands are unbound – of course they are. Morgan poses no threat here, not alone and unarmed. Not without a hellfire torch in his hand.

“Thank you,” he says at last. “It’s good to… see you. Really.”

Elena says nothing, staring hard at him with her hands folded over her belly. Aziraphale doesn’t have to be in her head to know the resentment seething inside her, almost hot enough to consume the grudging affection she can’t quite shake. 

Morgan meets her gaze and drops his to study his hands. “I don’t get many visitors, aside from Mum. She visits. Once a week, always has news to share.” His eyes flick, traitorously, to her belly. “But she didn’t say…”

“That I was having a baby,” Elena cuts in, “with Adam. Yeah, I told her not to tell you.” She throws the words like knives, each one aimed to cut and bloom pain. “If it’s any consolation, she wanted to tell you. I didn’t let her.”

Morgan flinches under the force of her spite. “Why…”

“We were thinking of naming it Deirdre, if it’s a girl,” Elena adds, relentlessly. “For Adam’s mum.”

“And if it’s a boy?”

A beat. Aziraphale, hearing through Elena’s ears, can tell the question was posed on impulse – a knee-jerk courtesy, following the script humans have used to discuss their infants for centuries. Elena goes still, an acerbic response curdling in her throat. Aziraphale knows what she won’t say, the name she won’t bring into this bleak, airless place. _Newton._

Morgan knows, too. “Oh.”

Elena rallies. “Auntie and Aziraphale are going to be the godfathers. They got married, by the way. You weren’t invited. Obviously.”

For an instant, Morgan looks as if he’s been slapped. Then the moment is gone and he glares. “Why do you have to be such a— Why are you so cruel?”

“Dunno. Why did _you _side with those fanatical arseholes? Why did you try to kill Aziraphale? He’s _family, _Morgan, and you just…” She trails off, swallowing, and Aziraphale can feel the tightness in her throat: unshed tears. “I can’t believe you did that. I never thought you could be like that.”

Morgan looks away. He resembles a kicked puppy, all pathetic, abject misery. “Neither did I.”

Elena gives a harsh laugh. “Really. It must be very convenient for you to say that now, here. Locked up.” Her vows goes low, ragged with rage and grief. “You fucked off to play soldier for who knows how long. Mum needed you, _I _needed you, and you were gadding about with that maniac—”

“Don’t call him that,” Morgan says, eyes flashing as he looks up at last. “Just… don’t.”

Elena stares, suspended in disbelief. “Tom tried to _kill __me, _Morgan. He would’ve, if it weren’t for Auntie. Doesn’t that matter to you?”

“Of course it does!” Morgan explodes. “I just…”

“Just what?”

Morgan chews on his lip. He looks as if he’s about to burst into tears. “Tom made me feel… special. Important. Like I made his world fit together.” He shakes his head, shoulders moving with silent huffs that will build into sobs, given time. Aziraphale remembers him as a child, sensitive and sullen and always eclipsed by his sister’s shadow. Too ordinary to be a witch’s son. 

“I’d never felt like that before,” he says, and covers his face with his hands.

-

After, waddling into the parking lot, Elena halts as a familiar car maneuvers into a spot. Aziraphale doesn’t understand the trepidation bleeding through her mind into his until the driver’s door opens and a slim figure steps out. Anathema. Older, certainly, but unmistakably Anathema. A chill sweeps through him.

“Oh, hullo, love,” Anathema says, opening her arms for a hug. “I didn’t know you were visiting.”

“It was a last-minute decision. I didn’t know until I was halfway here, myself.”

Anathema hums and stands back, surveying her daughter with a critical look. Her eyes lock with Elena’s and Aziraphale feels the body he is inhabiting stiffen, heart drumming. A thread of eldritch consciousness reaches from Anathema to Elena, sinks in to brush against Aziraphale. He shrinks back, frightened. In a separate plane of awareness, he feels Crowley squeeze his hand.

“I see,” Anathema says. The thread of consciousness retreats and she inclines her head – not forgiveness, not by a long shot, but acknowledgement. More than Aziraphale ever dared hope for. 

“I’ll see you later, love,” she says, touching Elena’s cheek. “Just you, though. Yes?”

“Yeah.” Elena nods, swallows. “Be seeing you, mum.”

Anathema smiles and walks toward the prison. As she vanishes through the front door, the building façade and surrounding car park smear and twist like melting candlewax. Aziraphale feels himself slipping out of Elena’s mind and spilling back into the cottage. The pain is dull but persistent, and it takes his mind a sluggish moment to reorient to his body and understand. Crowley is squeezing his hands in a ferocious grip.

“Are you all right?” he asks. “Angel! Are you all right?”

It takes Aziraphale another moment to feel the tears tracking down his cheeks. “Oh. I’m… I’m fine, my dear.” The words shake a sob out of him and he pulls Crowley closer, closer, until the demon’s arms twine around him. “I—I miss him. I know I shouldn’t, but I do.”

“I know, angel,” Crowley murmurs. “I know.”

“I should hate him, shouldn’t I? He almost destroyed me.”

“That’s not you, though,” Crowley says. “Is it? You could never hate Morgan.”

“No. But I _should.”_

“No,” Crowley says, gently. “You shouldn’t. He’s family, Aziraphale. It goes both ways, that. He made a mistake and he’s paying for it.” He blinks hard, clears his throat. “And maybe, one day, things will be… different.”

Aziraphale buries his face in Crowley’s shoulder to stifle a gutted noise. He shakes and shakes as the demon smooths soothing hands down his back, over and over until the harshest tremors begin to ease.

-

It isn’t always perfect.

Far from it, in fact. With a history like theirs – millennia of knowing each other down to the very starstuff, decades more of sheltering together through a war – nothing can be perfect. Each one knows the other’s flaws too well for that.

Aziraphale no longer checks the wards. There is nothing to check, not anymore. The impulse remains, though – the fear that, any moment, someone could walk up to the front door of the cottage and he would not know until they knocked. He tries not to let himself dwell on that, but he doesn’t always succeed. When that happens, the fear comes crashing back, knocking him down and sucking him into dark, icy depths. He grips chair backs and countertops until wood and granite crack under his fingers, he goes on long walks, he sits still and tries to convince his unnecessary heart and unnecessary lungs that they don’t need to beat or breathe so fast. 

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. It’s not perfect, but it is progress.

Crowley has his own fears to contend with. Loud noises make him flinch, whether it’s Aziraphale closing a cabinet door a little too hard or the asthmatic backfiring of Elena’s Land Rover. When he’s nervous, he unconsciously curls one hand around his wrist, thumb rubbing the bone. 

He saw a woman’s hand blown off, Aziraphale recalls. He wonders how long that image will haunt him.

The fears remain, but now they both know to seek the other out when they need to. When Aziraphale feels like he will collapse under the weight of terror and compulsion, he lets Crowley shoulder some of the load. When Crowley is paralyzed and made small by helplessness, he seeks comfort in Aziraphale’s arms. 

Each has learned to let the other see his weak points, but it’s more than that. Aziraphale has learned to stop resenting himself for being afraid. Crowley has learned to let his anger at the world dissipate, to neither lash out nor turn inward. 

It’s not perfect, but it is a balancing act.

And then, sitting out in the garden on a brittle winter afternoon, Aziraphale looks up from his book. Crowley has slowly started letting other seasons into the garden – never enough to hurt his plants, but enough for some variety. Heedless of the chill, the tree has borne fruit. Apples hang above him, taut and blushing red-gold, exact echoes of the fruit that first tempted Eve into sin. 

Huffing, Aziraphale closes his book. “Fine. I suppose it’s time to leave the garden.”

He goes inside to find Crowley in the bedroom, sunning himself in a spear of sunlight on the bed. Kneeling, he nudges aside fiery tendrils of hair to press his lips to the demon’s temple.

“I’m ready,” he says, “if you are.”

Crowley opens his eyes. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.” Aziraphale takes a steadying breath. “I want… to do more. Help Beelzebub lead the angels, perhaps. Help Adam build bridges.” He pushes on, past the instinct to dither and fret. _Keep moving._ “I know I can do more, as long as you’re with me.”

Crowley catches his hand, tugs it down to kiss his knuckles. “So can I.”

“So. Yes?”

“Yes.”

-

Later, Crowley stands on the paving stone path stretching away from the cottage. In the car park, the Land Rover rumbles, Adam sitting in the front seat. Elena’s time could come any day now, so she’s staying close to London. Aziraphale is looking forward to seeing her.

He pauses on the threshold, heart hammering. But, for once, he isn’t afraid: he’s excited. Ready to begin.

Crowley holds out his hand. “Angel?”

Aziraphale closes the front door, locks it, and steps away to look back. The apple tree towers over the cottage, impervious to the cold. A sentinel holding vigil over a place that no longer needs protecting. 

“I’m ready,” he says.

He takes Crowley’s hand and, together, they walk down the path. 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this story, please consider leaving kudos or a comment - I really appreciate them! And thank you to those who have encouraged me along the way. <3 Your feedback and kindness has helped motivate me to finish this story.


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